


Long Lost Brother

by MchartandCJDannyandGSR1515



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:14:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 29,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22204657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MchartandCJDannyandGSR1515/pseuds/MchartandCJDannyandGSR1515
Summary: A partial male DNA match to former CSI, Sara Sidle at a crime scene brings nearly everyone back to Vegas.
Relationships: David Hodges/Wendy Simms, Gil Grissom/Sara Sidle, Louis “Lou Vartann/Catherine Willows, Morgan Brody/Greg Sanders, Nick Stokes/Mandy Webster
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	1. The discovery

**Author's Note:**

> I do NOT own these amazing characters or the show.

“Oh come on that can’t be right.” Lindsey Willows CSI level 2 yells at the screen showing Sara Sidle’s picture. Her supervisor Greg Sanders walked by the room as she was yelling at the screen.

“What can’t be right Linds?” He asks as he pokes his head into the DNA lab.

Lindsey rolls her eyes at the nickname given to her by her mom’s former colleagues that have since left CSI Las Vegas either by choice or by death. “The DNA left at the scene I was working last night has 7 alleles in common with Sara. I know she was an only child.”

Greg sighs realizing what no one has told the young CSI that he watched grow up now has to come up. “Lindsey. Why don’t we go find your mom and talk to her about what you found.”

Lindsey folds her arms like her mother Cathrine Willows who took over as lab director after Sara followed Grissom out to sea a little over four years ago. As Catherine hears a knock on her door she sees two of her favorite CSIs. After she waves them in she notices the worried look on Greg and the frustration on her daughter. “What’s going on,” she asks them.

“It seems we need to tell Lindsey about the childhood of Sara.” Catherine fully sits backs and wipes a hand across her forehead and eyes.

“Mom, what is going on?” Lindsey pleading with her eyes.

“Right now I am more than your boss and Greg as well.”

“You were always more than my boss mom; I became a CSI because of you.”

“Honey, Sara really didn’t have a good childhood with loving parents.”

“Okay, many people don’t.” Doing this job she has learned that people weren’t lucky having a loving parent or parents like she did.

“She was abused by her father whenever he was drunk. By age five she had already been to the hospital many times with her mother Laura and brother James.”

“I thought she was an only child.”

“James was over ten years older than Sara. When Sara’s mother stabbed her father when he tried to sexually assault Sara, she was taken to a foster home. She was only seven and her brother just turned eighteen, so he went to a half-way house.” Lindsey’s eyes go wide.

“Is that why you and Sara fought a lot before she was kidnapped?”

“I didn’t know about what happened to her as a kid until after she married Grissom.”

Greg clears his throat, “Neither did I. Sara said she told Grissom after she got suspended from getting in that fight with you, Cath.”

“That was what 14 years ago?” Catherine isn’t surprised that Grissom knew that about Sara, “that is why he didn’t fire her when Ecklie told him to. That sly dog.”

“Mom, can we get back to Sara.” Catherine pulls herself out of memory lane.

“After she was taken into foster care her foster parents refused to let her contact her brother as he got into legal trouble shortly before their mother murdered their father.”

“Why didn’t Sara try and find him when she became a CSI?” Greg and Catherine look at each other.

“We don’t know the answer to that, but we should try and get in contact with Sara and Grissom to get them back to Vegas.”

“Cath, as much as I miss them when was the last time they were in signal reach?” Greg asks fed up.

“Greg we need to try, this is Sara’s long lost brother we are talking about and she deserves to know that her brother isn’t dead.”

“Mom,” Lindsey interjects, “it may take them some time to see that we called.” Catherine looks at her daughter as she already knows that fact.

“I know that if two weeks pass, we will call our friends at the FBI and San Diego Crime Lab. Greg, Lindsey you call Sara, and I will call Grissom.” The three CSIs all get out their phones and click on the names of their former colleagues.

A week later Lindsey is getting impatient about not hearing from Sara.

……..Meanwhile…….

Sara Sidle and Gil Grissom step off his boat named Ishmael after the character from Moby Dick, and onto the San Diego pier. When their phones alert them to messages missed in the past week. _“_ Gil, did you get a call from anyone from the lab?”

“Yes, Catherine called me, what about you.”

“Greg and Lindsey.” The two former CSIs can guess that something serious is going on if they both have received calls from Vegas.

“You should call Greg first while I call Catherine.” Sara smiles in agreement. _“Hello, Catherine.”_

 _“Gil, you finally called me back. We have an issue here.”_ Catherine rushes to her office.

_“What kind of issue? You called me and both Greg and Lindsey called Sara. Is Jim ok?”_

_“It’_ _d his DNA at a scene. We need you two here.”_

While Catherine was telling him about the DNA Sara reached Greg. _”Greg, why did you call 10 times in the past 5 days?”_

_“Sar, we have a situation.”_

_“What kind of situation.”_

_“One that involves,”_ Grissom signs ‘your brother’ to Sara.

 _“My brother.”_ Sara’s voice sounds as shocked as everyone feels.

“ _Yes, how did you know?”_

_“Gil is on the phone with Catherine and he just signed brother to me.”_

_“Ok, but we need you two here as soon as you can catch a plane.”_

_“Greg we will be there. I know I will be interviewed about James.”_

_“I’m sorry Sara, I know this will be difficult for you.”_

_“Greg, no need to be sorry for following the evidence.”_

_“It was Lindsey that found this evidence.”_

_“How did that discussion go?”_ Sara knows that Lindsey looks up to Sara for all the help she gave Lindsey as a teenager and her first few days being a CSI along with her interview process at the lab.

“ _She thought you were an only child.”_

_“Who told her about my family history?”_

_“Both Catherine and I.”_

_“Thanks for doing it together.”_

_“Sara we both love you like family.”_

_“I know, Gil and I feel the same, but I should go. We’ll call you when we have a flight.”_

_“Bye Sara, give Griss my love.”_

“I will, goodbye, give Cath and Linds my love too.” Sara hangs up as Grissom puts his arms around her to give her a hug. “Well, this means my brother has been alive all this time and probably has followed our father’s steps as an alcoholic.”

“Honey, we don’t know that. All we know is that he is a suspect in a crime.” Sara puts her head on his shoulder as she remembers the last time she saw her brother was when she was taken into foster care.

“Come on, let's go to the apartment to book a flight back to Vegas.” Sara takes his hand to walk back the partially lived in apartment that Grissom’s mother owned in the 80s and now is in his name.


	2. The Arrival

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same as chapter 1.

“How are you doing Sara?” Grissom watches Sara closely as she opens and closes her eyes.

“Confused on how my brother has stayed under the radar for over 40 years.”

“Especially in this day and age when most people have social media, a cell phone, and belong to a bank.” He rubs her back in comfort.

“Gil, we need to book the flight.”

“I know let us see if we can catch a red-eye, and check if our old place has been cleaned out by the tenants that moved out recently.” Sara gives her famous Sidle smile as she leaves his arm to go unpack from their time at sea as Grissom follows her lead. 

“So, back to Vegas this time because of my family. Last time was because of Heather.”

“And you, I missed you, us.” Grissom throws his straw hat into his bag with a new pair of pants and a few shirts.

“You know they are going to ask you about why we got divorced.” 

He sits down on their bed as Sara sits next to him. “How much should we tell them about those reasons?”

“Gil, we both had the same problem.” 

“I know, you had it because of Natale and for me, it was just it.” Sara puts her hand on the bottom of his chin and moves it up into a slow kiss.

After they pull away, “Gil, all of that is in the past, we can announce our engagement.”

“They’ll think it's the second, when it is actually our third.” He says with an amused smile.

Sara gives a small laugh, “This time our marriage will stick.”

“It sure will.” They stand back up to finish packing and do the laundry, so there would be no stench when they get back after the case is closed.

“Gil, I just checked online there are two seats available near the bathroom on the red-eye to Vegas tonight.” Grissom goes into their office to see the seats.

“Good, book them and I’ll call Cath.” Sara nods her head in agreement.

“I told Greg I would call him with our flight information.”

“Ok, you do that. I will call the tenants.”

…….That night……

“Welcome to Las Vegas current temperature is 52 degrees. Enjoy your stay in the Entertainment Capital of the World.” Grissom and Sara look at each other and share a small smile. 

“This is our first time flying in together,” states Grissom.

“It was 20 years ago last month that I got a call from you to come and investigate why Warrick left the scene where Holly Gribs was shot.” They both just think about that memory as they disembark from the plane to see Brass standing and waiting for them at arrivals.

“I heard that two former CSIs needed to be picked from the airport.” Brass says laughing when they approach him. 

“Well, when the DNA of my brother I haven’t seen since childhood shows up at the scene of a crime, you have to come back to see everyone and be interviewed.”

“Cookie, how are you dealing with all of this.” Grissom puts the bags down.

“Better now that I have mulled it over for 10 hours.”

“That’s great, now let’s get Sara to the PD and Gil do you want to come?”

Sara puts her hand on Grissom as she picks up her shoulder bag, “Gil can you please go check on mom?”

“Do you want me to tell her something?”

“Nothing about James, please. She hasn’t been having many good days lately.” As they get in Brass’s old beat-up car they sit in the back and just watch the city go by until they see their former place of employment. The cops that knew the couple when they worked in the crime lab stare as they walk up to their three friends and a new CSI that they don’t know. 

Sara hugs Catherine, Greg, and Lindsey. She can tell something is different from the young CSI, “What’s wrong Lindsey?”

Lindsey’s eyes go wide and she tries to keep her hands away from her belly. “Nothing that can’t wait until Nick shows up next week.” Sara and Grissom share a look knowing it must be something big if Nick is coming back to Vegas. No one notices that Greg and Catherine smile, because they know that Lindsey is pregnant.

“Mhmm, Miss. Sidle, Patrise Clarkson. I will be interviewing you tonight as I am the only CSI that has never had any contact with you.”

Sara gives her the Sidle glare, “I know procedure, I was a CSI when you were still in school.” Everyone who knows Sara goes to stop what may happen if the new CSI tries to make Sara look stupid.

“Clarkson,” Catherine interjects, “Sara was almost Lab Director before she gave the job to me so I could adopt Maria and Helen and stay in Vegas for them.”

“Ok, Miss. Sidle follow me.” Sara motions Grissom to go check on her mom as she follows the black hair four foot nine CSI.

After Sara disappears behind the door to be interviewed Catherine turns to see her long-time friend walk towards the door. “Gil, wait up.”

“Cath, Sara asked me to check on her mom. I am heading over there.” Catherine can tell he won’t be stopped so she goes and observes the CSI that was recently put on probation for insubordination.

“May I call you Sara?” Patrise asks as she sits across from Sara.

“Yes.” Sara can tell this girl will cause many problems for CSI.

“Do you have a brother?”

“My brother who I haven’t seen since I was a kid is named James Edward Sidle.”


	3. Hello Mom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Refer to chapter one.

At the Mental Hospital.......

Grissom walks to the nurses' station and notices no one at the station. He is about to ring the bell when he hears his name. He turns around to see someone who he hasn’t seen for over a decade. “Dr. Valrie Dino.”

“You remember me.”

“You worked at the Mental Hospital for the Criminal Insane. That case did a lot to Sara and I.”

“You must be here for her mom.” Grissom nods in assent. “Come this way, she is having a good day.”

“That’s good. I do have a favor to ask of you for both Sara and I; her brother is alive and she believes that if Laura saw him she would be sent into an episode.”

“So, you want us to look out for a male that can look like Sara and her mother?”

“Even her father, if you look at the file there should be a picture of Scott Sidle.” Grissom always hates saying the name of that man as he abused his wife’s whole family.

“We will, Laura is an important client here, as every patient is, but after Basederic from a few years ago, we knew that she would be a target to get to her daughter.

“Thank you.” Grissom walks into Laura’s room to see her sitting; staring out the window into the abyss. “Laura,” Grissom lightly touches her shoulder, “it’s me Gil Grissom. I am engaged to your daughter Sara.”

Laura looks up to see the clean-shaven man whom her daughter loves. “Where is my Sara?”

Grissom sits and smiles. “She needed to talk to her friends and asked me to come to check on you and get to know you more.”

“Will, you ever hurt her again?”

“Never again will I hurt her emotionally. I let my insecurities get in the way too many times.” Laura remembers how Sara told her that Grissom never once raised a hand against her. Grissom’s phone goes off. “That will be Sara.” Laura smiles knowing her daughter is back home not noticing the dark figure in the doorway. _“Hello dear.”_

_“Gil, have you talked to mom yet?”_

_“She is right here with me.”_ He hands the phone to Laura.

 _“Mom, how are you?”_ Laura can tell by Sara’s voice she is worried about something.

 _“I’m doing fine baby.”_ Laura trying to calm her daughter instead of the other way around.

_“That’s good. I love you, mom.”_

_“What about you? I_ haven’t seen you in a few years, and you send your fiance to come talk to me.”

_“I am on my way to talk to you right now. You know Gil is a great guy. He never once treated anyone like dad did.”_

_“I know sweetie.”_ The dark figure leaves the hospital knowing that cops will soon be in the hospital and heads home.


	4. Mom interrogation

“So, Gil, what made you leave my daughter in the first place.” Laura’s eyes implore him to answer. Gil sees the same fire that he knows well in Sara’s eyes.

“I think we should wait until Sara gets here for that.” Sara rushes into the room at that time giving her mom a hug.

“Wait for what?” Sara says as she sits next to Grissom as he puts his arm around her.

“What we will most likely have to talk to the gang about.”

“The divorce.” Sara looks at her mom trying to think how everything should be told. “Mom, Gil and I can’t have kids. We didn’t tell each other when we found out why I couldn’t get pregnant.”

“Sara, I think it’s safe not to pass anything from our family down more. Who knows anything about your brother, and if he had any kids.”

Grissom and Sara look at each other and have a silent conversation with their eyes. “Do you think she knows he’s alive and most likely in Vegas.”

“What are the two of you thinking,” asks an exasperated Laura.

“Mom, do you know that James still alive and here in Vegas.” Sara puts her hand on her mom’s arm.

“That’s not surprising. He may have made mistakes in his youth, but he tried to protect you from your dad. One day he ran at your dad for twisting your arm to far. He actually knocked him out so I could take you to the hospital. That is when he got arrested and why he couldn’t take care of you after I murdered Scott. I also think Social Services wanted you to have a bigger chance of not going down the same road that everyone in your family has.” Grissom remembers reading something in that psychology forensic journal 12 years ago about nature vs nurture.

“There wasn’t much out about nature vs nurture in 70’s.”

“They didn’t know that there was plenty of horrible foster homes I went to. Granted by the age of 16 when I got a full ride to Harvard and emancipated myself.” Both Grissom and Laura are always proud when Sara talks about her time in Harvard.

“My Sara was always reading books and hiding when she started reading ‘Crime and Punishment’. You have no idea how proud I am of her and what she has done.” Sara tries not to blush at the praise and she knows the man next to her feels the same way. The three sit and talk for a few hours and Grissom feels a weight on his shoulder as Laura smiles to see Sara so at peace. She hasn’t seen that since she was a baby. Grissom kisses the top of Sara’s head.

“Honey, I think it’s time to go to the condo.” Sara slowly opens her eyes and smiles at her lover. “Sara, you are falling asleep, and I am sure your mom wants to go to bed too.” She shakes her head as she stands up, “I’ll go call for a cab.”

“Thanks Gil.” Sara goes up to her mom as she tries to help her mom into the bed.

“Sara, were you at the Crime Lab before you came here?” Laura wishes she could read Sara at this moment, she knows that Sara isn’t telling her everything. Grissom comes into the room to tell Sara that the cab is here. As they walked out Grissom had his arm around her waist. When they walk in the door Sara is surprised that Grissom already had their bags in the house.

“Sara,” Grissom comes up behind her as she is getting ready for bed, “it’s just me now, how do you feel about your brother popping out of nowhere in the city you called home for 15 years.”

She turns around to wrap her arms around him and finally lets herself cry. Grissom tightens his hold on her as he rubs her back. After a good 10 minutes Sara looks up, “look how far we have come from 14 years ago when I told you about my family.”

“Look how far you have come. You have told her found family about your biological family, you have overcome a kidnapping, one of your friends getting murdered by a fellow cop and so much more. You, Sara are my hero.” He leans his head down to give his fiance a long loving kiss that reminded her of their first kiss in 2005. They finishing getting ready for bed as Sara takes out her pink robe that Gris got her when they became a couple and started to stay at each others places. He lays on his back and Sara lays on her side as she puts her head on his shoulder as his hand grabs hers as the fall into a restless sleep.

At a house in North Las Vegas a woman falls into bed after talking to one of the three CSIs that her superiors talk about all the time. “Patrise is that you?” A man in his early 60s who is dating the new CSI in her 40s.

“Yes, it is James. Did you go to the hospital to talk to your mom?” She leans on the bed.

“A man was there.” An angry James states to his girlfriend and secret keeper.

“What did he look like?” Patrise is remembering what the man Sara was with looked like.

“Grey hair about 5’10”, clean-shaven average build. He said something about being engaged to my sister.” She rubs his arm to soothe him not wanting him to get angry.

“What I know is that he is in a relationship with your sister who is feisty and is close to almost everyone on my team.”

“They’re engaged.” James doesn’t like all the obstacles in his way to get his family back together. “Honey, do you know what you are going to do about my DNA on that scene.”

“No, I do not. Greg and Morgan are guarding it like hawks. They seem to be a couple, but I know Catherine won’t care as she’s known Greg for many years and has known Morgan a few years. Sara and her partner got together when he was her supervisor.” When Patrise started at the job she read the handbook about not starting relationships with coworkers and told James about it.

“So, my sister and I are opposites. She goes for older men and I go for younger women.” He kisses Patrise’s cheek before falling back asleep.


	5. Being Stalked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own these characters by the creative team of CSI.

…..The Next day…..  
“Greg, we need more milk.” Morgan Brody yells through their shared apartment.

“Put it on the list, we probably should go check on Sara. I know she has Gris, and he will make sure she is happy now that they never leave the country without the other.” Morgan goes up to put her arms around Greg.

“Are you ready for our secret to be out to everyone.”

Greg smiles, “she figured out last year. She even told me that it was bound to happen.”

“First, how did she figure it out, second why did she say that.”

“She saw how close we were getting before the bombs were planted to put Lady Heather in prison, and Catherine told her how we held onto each other after we diffused the one bomb. She figured it out when we were talking on the phone when I was planning to ask you to move in with me.” Morgan raises her eyebrows, “I was talking to the master at hiding secrets.”

“The master?” Morgan never knew the secrets that were kept years ago.

“I didn’t know about her family until 2013, we had known each other for 13 years at that point. Grissom and her hid the fact they were in a relationship for two years and living together for one when she was kidnapped. If it wasn’t for that they probably would've stayed hidden for longer. She hid the fact they were divorced for a few months. I think they are hiding something again.”

Morgan lets out a small laugh, knowing that both her friend and her lover were very private. “Sara changed after she married Grissom and then went back to her old self when they got divorced it seems. I didn’t know she had a brother until this case. I only knew a little bit about her family.”

“Mo, Sara and Grissom are very complex. Sara chased Grissom for years before they got together.” Greg kisses Morgan on the forehead as he goes to the door.

“Greg as much as I love Sara and know she wouldn’t purposely talk to her brother I have this feeling that someone we know is in contact with him.”

“If that’s true, it's not the people who trained me to become a CSI, they are not McKeen.” Greg walks out the door before Morgan can say anything.

She gets out her phone to call Sara, “ _Sara, Greg is on his way to your place. I tried to tell him to be careful so my dad doesn’t try to pull us off the case. You need people who care about you and we want to do this for you.”_

“Honey, I picked up your phone by mistake. It’s Morgan talking about Greg.” Sara comes out of the bedroom and grabs the phone from Grissom.

_“Morgan, he is a great CSI and a wonderful friend. He will do what’s right.”_

_“Sara, I just have this feeling someone on my team is in contact with your brother,”_

_“I don’t know what to say. I can assure you it is not Gil or I. What about any of the newbies?”_

_“Shit, I think it may be our newest hire. She started as a CSI a little late in life.”_

_“Is it Patrise? She didn’t believe me when I said that I haven’t seen or heard from James since we were kids.”_

_“Unfortunately yes, something seems off about her. I know I will need evidence before I talk to Greg or Catherine.”_ Sara hears a knock on the door and Grissom welcomes someone in.

“Sara, Greg is here.” She hangs up the phone before going to see Greg.

“Greggo, I am fine. I saw my mom last night and we didn’t leave until very late. You should be with Morgan right now anyway.” Grissom just smiles and shakes his head.

“Griss, why are you shaking your head?”

“Just that basically everyone that was a CSI when I was, have all dated someone that they work or worked with. Sara and I, Catherine and Det. Vartann, Hoges, and Wendy, I am sure that Nick saw Mandy socially for a while if Warrick never married Tina I know he would’ve asked out Catherine; Ecklie must’ve wanted to break us up more than once.”

“Our team definitely knew how to fish from the company pier. Granted Catherine did tell me fishing from the company pier was asking for trouble back before anyone knew about us.”

“Remember Brass knew about us through an unfortunate event that involved him walking in on us having sex one night.”

“I also knew about the two of you.” Greg sees their shocked faces. “I knew right around the time Griss was on his sabbatical.”

“How,” both Sara and Grissom ask in unison.

“Sara, you were exerting happiness until Griss was gone and when Cath and Keppler went all reverse forensics on us I could tell even more when you carried mail out of his office or put a stick in it.”

“Thank you for saying anything about us.” They are touched by the secrecy of the younger man.

“Thank you for acting surprised when I announced our relationship.” Greg just smiles as his phone rings. After he looks at it he leaves with a goodbye.

Grissom and Sara go through their day thinking about when they will be asked that question by their friends. Around 4:30 in the afternoon they go to see Warrick’s grave. “I don’t remember the last time I was here.”

“Last time I was here was with Eli. After Warrick died Tina had problems, and when she got involved in a case; I helped her get clean and get Eli back. She then let me babysit Eli when she went to get her nursing license reinstated.” Grissom looks at Sara wishing he was here to be a surrogate grandfather to the young boy as Warrick thought of him like a father. “Gil, do you want to see if Eli and Tina are home?” After laying flowers on the grave they stand up grab hold on the other hand as Sara directs them to where Eli and Tina live. Sara knocks on the door, Tina opens it and smiles when she sees Sara, but gives a small frown when she sees Grissom. He holds out his hand to shake it.

“Hello, Dr. Grissom.” Eli comes running out of his room and notices Sara and gives her a hug. “He missed you, Sara.” Eli goes over to Grissom cocks his head to the side and gives a bright smile that Grissom recognizes as Warrick’s.

“Hi, Eli. I’m Gil. I knew your dad and remember you at his funeral.”

“I was there?” Eli asks with his brown eyes lighting up with wonder.

“Your mom,” Grissom looks at Tina and smiles, “sat in the back and held you the whole time.” Tina is surprised how good Grissom is with Eli.

“I’m sorry we didn’t call, Gil and I were just visiting Warrick’s grave and he wanted to meet Eli.” Sara will not tell Tina the real reason why she is in Vegas.

“Tina, I’m sorry that I didn’t talk to you after Warrick was killed.”

“Grissom, I know Warrick looked up to you and we weren’t talking at that point.” Eli takes Grissom’s hand and asks to play ball. For the next two hours, those two play catch and Sara watches on thinking about adoption and fostering kids so Grissom can have a son.

Sara hears a phone go off in the distance she knows it is not her or Grissom’s. Tina looks at her so it’s not hers. Sara’s heartbeat speeds up thinking it may be her brother following her around. “Gil, we probably should get going.” He recognizes the panic in her voice from the years they worked together. He catches the last toss that Eli threw and tells him that it's time to leave.

After they reach their car at the cemetery Sara gets out her phone and calls Greg, Catherine, Morgan, and Lindsey all of whom didn’t answer so she calls Hodges.”Hello, Miss Sidle what can I do for you today?”

“David, I tried to get a hold of Catherine, Greg, and company, but no one is picking up. Can you please try and contact them and tell them to come to the condo. I only want to talk to people who Gil and I trust what I think is going on. You can come too.”

“Ok, what time do you want everyone over. They are currently in court.”

“Before the next shift starts, Gil and I will be home.” Hodges hangs up and heads to the courthouse hoping court is in recess.

Catherine sees the part-time CSI part-time lab tech coming towards everyone with his eyes wide. “What’s wrong Hodges?”

“I can only tell you, Greg, Morgan and Lindsey.” At that Lindsey walks out of the room the case is being tried in.

“Mom, a 15-minute recess was just called.”

“Good, where are Greg and Morgan. Hodges has something important to say to the four of us.” Hodges has the CSIs follow him to a small space and relays his short conversation with Sara. The three seasoned CSIs are growing more concerned for their friends and Lindsey is worried for two of the people she has known for years.


	6. Talking with the team

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same as previous chapter

As Grissom and Sara walked inside their old condo to get ready for that night, Grissom asks “Sara, what’s wrong.”

“When we were at Tina’s I heard a phone ring and it wasn’t Tina’s or one of ours.” Grissom walks around the room and runs his hand over his chin. “Gil, what aren’t you telling me?”

“Before you called me when I was with your mom last night I felt like I was being watched. Before I walked in the room, I told the doctor who we know from a case we worked around the time we got together to keep a lookout for a man that may look like you and your mom.” Sara jumps up and grabs the keys to their rental and runs out the door to make sure someone is watching her mom. Grissom makes a call to an old friend who retired before Sara came to Vegas.

“Hello, is Carl there?” A gruff man in his late 60s comes to the phone.

“This is Carl may I ask who is calling.?

‘Gil Grissom. I need you to repay that favor from 20 years ago.”

“What is it?” The PI asks.

“Sara’s mother needs protection in the hospital from a long lost relative.”

“I am a private investigator now and can look for him. What’s his name.”

“Since I only trust CSIs and Sara at the moment, his name is James Sidle.”

“What does he look like, I can only guess. I have never seen him and Sara hasn’t seen him since she was little.”

“Can you give me anything?”

“Nothing really, there are things revolved in a case that is why Sara is here in Vegas.”

“I can’t help you then Gil.” Grissom tries his best not to think of the last time someone was obsessed about their relationship.

“We think he is following us. Sara called our friends over here because someone she used to work with is suspicious about a newer CSI!”

“Gil, I need more to go on, to try to find him.” Grissom slams down the receiver before any more can be said. He paces around the house until Sara walks back into the room.

“Mom is fine she gave me a picture of dad. Tomorrow I will go get it colorized and will give it to Greg as he has seen mom and I. They can try to figure out his features by comparing all four pictures.” She slumps down on the couch as the doorbell rings. Sara looks at Gil and he sees the distress in her eyes. Before Grissom got the door he leans over to her and they share a small kiss. Knocks are now heard on the door.

“I’m coming, wait one second.” He ushers in the group of people. Surprised to see Brass come in with them. “Hello Brass, Cath, Greg, Morgan, Lindsey, and Hodges. Right, this way.” Everyone sees a defeated looking Sara as they walk into the room.

“Cookie, what all is going on?” Brass sits down next to Sara.

“My brother is brave, following us, going to the hospital where my mom is at who knows what else.” Everyone looks at Grissom for an explanation.

“Last night before Sara called me when she was on her way to see her mom I felt like I was being watched, and earlier today we were visiting Tina and Eli, Sara heard a strange ringtone. She doesn’t want her mom to get hurt or to be sent into an episode.” Grissom’s hand touches Sara’s knee. Catherine and Greg have moved to the side discussing what should happen.

“Sara, we need to tell Ecklie all of this.” Morgan sees her eyes go wide.

“He can come over to my apartment as my father and I can tell him everything. The three of you need protection.”

“We have had too many instances of when the protection we issued didn’t work out. I still have a gun and a carry permit. I will protect my fiance and my mother at all costs!” Five faces look towards Sara who is now standing up with her hands on her hips and then to Grissom who reminds two of them of when Sara was kidnapped when he let it out that Sara was the only woman he ever really loved. Greg, Brass, Morgan, and Lindsey both open and close their mouth trying to come up with something to say.

Catherine tired of all their secrets from the past twenty years face turns a dark shade of red, “WHY DO THE TWO OF YOU ALWAYS KEEP SECRETS ABOUT YOUR STATUS!”

“Cath calm down..” Grissom puts his hand up in a defensive move.

“CALM DOWN. YOU TELL ME TO CALM DOWN WHEN I AM ALREADY WORRIED ABOUT SARA AND NOW THIS COMES OUT. WERE YOU GUYS EVER PLANNING TO TELL US ABOUT YOUR NUPTIALS!”

“Yes, we were planning to tell you guys. We were just waiting for a question we know that will be asked.”

“If you want to marry Sara, why did you divorce her in the first place?” Greg points out remembering how Sara got when he divorced her.

Grissom puts his arms around Sara and guides her back to sit down again. “When I asked her for the divorce a few years ago my insecurity of being too old for came up again, because I found out that I was infertile. I have known for years that Sara would make a great mother as I saw her grow and be amazing with children as a CSI.”

“Gees, the two of you never talked about anything too personal did you.”

“Cath, I told Gil about my family before we got together, but yes when it came to both of our problems with infertility we never said a word.” Before anyone could say anything, “when Natalie kidnapped me and left me for dead under the car combined with my abuse as a kid I have to much scratches around my uterus.” Sara looks around to see Greg and Morgan holding hands and Lindsey rubbing her stomach and gives a sad smile at her family.

“Did the two of you get some help to talk about this?” The couple gazes at Brass.

“For the first year in a half of our relationship in California and the seas we sought out couples counseling to make sure this would last. I can’t live without Sara again. I refuse to be a 52-hertz whale.” Sara just laughs at the confused faces.

“When we all worked on that case 4 years ago when Gil and I were trying to talk to the man who was framing Heather he talked about that whale and how his soulmate could never hear his cry as it was too high.”

“Gil, when you want, you can really be romantic.” Sara thinks about how he snuck her veggie burgers when they were dating and working together.

“Cath, you don’t know the half of it.” Grissom knows what she is talking about as she sometimes still uses it as a bookmark with many words faded on the paper that is 12 years old.

“But still, you two need to tell us about anything like this. If it wasn’t for my daughter basically telling Sara to watch the end of the interview as Grissom helped released Lady Heather.”

“We wanted to say something in person and we are still trying to iron out the details.” Catherine is still not happy with them but congratulates the couple with everyone.

“Let's get back to the issue at hand. All of this only gets passed to Ecklie and no one else. Right now we can’t trust anyone who is new and knows how to hide things and find a way to protect Laura when Dr. Dino isn’t in.”

“Whose he,” asks Hodges.

“She is a doctor that Sara and I worked alongside when we were starting a relationship back before Nick was kidnapped.” Faces were a shock when they let it slip that they started their relationship before the team got put back together.

“Hopefully I run the lab better than I ran my team.” Catherine still blames herself for Nick’s kidnapping and remembers the whole 4 weeks when her team hated her from her reverse forensics and everything with Ray.

“Catherine, for two of those I was fully under your supervision and your time at the FBI helped you out a lot. You now realize you have no one to replace and think that you have to hold up to expectations.” Greg says referencing how she replaced Grissom as everyone looked at him. “What? Riley left because she wanted a Grissom we all know that.”

“And I got advice from Sara in a very Grissom way with a baseball analogy about making Nick an assistant supervisor.”

“Well, outside of work Sara was Sara Grissom.” Sara looks at Brass.

“The only person on the team that knew about that is Brass, he saw me before I interviewed Paul Millander’s son, Craig Mason. I told him because Craig hates cops especially Gil.”

“A case that happened before I joined the team?”

Everyone chuckles “that’s a story, Craig Mason is the adoptive son of Paul Millander otherwise known as Judge Mason when I first joined the team he was killing people with the same birthday as Gil. He tried to frame Gil by planting his prints. He eventually killed himself, and when I came back one of my first cases back involved Craig and he blamed this guy for the death of his father.”

Grissom looks at the clock, “night shift will start in a half an hour.” The CSIs all look up to see the time

“Before you guys leave my mom gave me a picture of my dad. She thinks that James may look like him or her. Gil was thinking that Archie could colorize it and look at feature of pictures of my mom and I to get a probable look of James.

“We will do that,” Greg says as everyone gets up to leave. The future Grissoms walk their found family out to their respective cars, worried about what may come of James.

…...At the lab……

Patrise walks into the break noticing no one was there. She walks through the lab to see the AV door shut and the blinds closed, so she goes to the DNA lab thankful Henry wasn’t present. She opens up the desktop and clicks on the case involving James, “Password protected, shit.”

While in the AV Lab Catherine is on the computer since no one else can come in and she made sure that everything regarding the case can’t be looked at except through those who she trusts. “Cath, you sure that the hair color is brown?”

“Greg, Sara told me years ago that when her father had hair it was brown.” The people that know the two well-loved CSIs know to make sure everything is kept in their tight group. Though none are aware of the newest member of their team thinking of ways to get into the system. She doesn’t notice Sheriff Conrad Ecklie coming in behind her.

“Clarkson what are you doing?” Ecklie still intimidating as ever frightens her. “If something is locked to a level 1, they are locked for a reason.”

“This is for a case I am working on.”

“What case?”

“The one where DNA XY was found relating to former CSI Sara Sidle.”

“I have only recently come to respect her however I have always respected Grissom. If someone put a password on it, they did it for a reason. Now get back to work I need to talk to Catherine.”

Ecklie walks to his old office now Catherine Willows’ to see she wasn’t there. He sat down on the guest chair waiting, 5 minutes later she walks in. “Conrad, how is it going being the Sheriff?”

“Good, but how is it finding out about Sara’s brother?”

She sighs, “Not great, Sara thinks she is being followed by him and that her mom may need police protection.”

“She feels that he would hurt his own mother.”

“Conrad, James’ mother killed his father to protect his sister by being assaulted by his father again, but before that, she had basically forced him to stay home after getting into trouble with the law.”

“The Sidle family sure has had a lot of problems. That explains why Sara had anger issues for years.” With a new understanding of Sara from in her 30s and her blow-ups. “Back to the fact of Sara feels she’s being followed.”

A small sign escapes from Catherine’s lips as she goes into an explanation from the past few days from Sara’s point of view. “I think we need to call Nick and DB to come back to Vegas. I know DB loves Paris, but we now need anyone we can fully trust on this and no one who has started since Sara left CSI again can work this case.”

“You can also call Mandy and Wendy from their labs to protect those two. If we need all the help we can get we should call everyone who didn’t leave CSI, and that includes those that were let off the hook by IA. Since Ray needs to stay away, we saw what he would do if someone he loves is put in danger.” He realizes he forgot to tell Catherine something.

“I did put a password on this case and had Greg put the physical evidence in a locker where only he, Morgan Lindsey and I have the keys. Only Hodges can look at it if asked for a key and the four of us know the password that Greg created.”

“What is the password?”

“The date he figured that Gil and Sara were in a relationship. Which was while Gil was on sabbatical.” They both were talking lowly so that ears can’t hear a word said. “We should probably do something about our newest hirer, Morgan feels that she is hiding something major and I refuse to let anything else happen to the two of them.” As Ecklie leaves Catherine gets out the phone to call everyone.

“You have reached the voicemail of Nick Stokes, sorry I can’t get to the phone right now. If you leave a message I will get back as soon as I can.”

 _“Nicky, we need you here sooner than we thought, I won’t give you much, but it involves Sara and her long lost brother. I will also be calling, Mandy, Wendy and DB we will need all the help we can get from those that Sara and Gil trust the most.”_ She hangs up the phone and hope DB is awake in Paris.

_“Hey, Catherine what’s up.”_

_“DB, we have an issue here in Vegas. A case has come up where only people that I trust fully can work and two of those people can’t work the case, because it involves her long lost brother.”_

_“How serious is the case?”_

_“Let’s just say Sara may have another stalker.”_ DB’s eyes go wide in worry.

 _“Before I started working there how often did someone get a stalker.”_ Catherine takes a moment to think back.

“ _Nick had one, both Grissom and Sara had Natalie Davis, and I am sure there was more.”_

_“I remember hearing the name Natalie Davis, and knew it was serious.”_

_“She was the miniature killer after she blames Grissom for the death of her foster father she kidnapped Sara and left her for dead. Sara had a burnout and left CSI and Vegas with only a small visit after Warrick Brown was murdered by McKeen and left again until she married Grissom.”_

_“I am glad I left Vegas.”_

_“You’re not coming then?”_

_“Give Sara my regards, but I can no longer be in law enforcement. I already had one divorce and I don’t want to separate from Greer.”_

_“Ok, I will, say hi to your family for me please.”_ After her call with Russell her phone rings she looks up to see Nick’s name on her phone. She tries to hide her disappointment that Russel won’t come and help out.

_“What is wrong with Vegas, the years I have worked in San Diego nothing this serious has happened.”_

_“Nicky, none of us expected this Sara thought her brother was dead and his DNA showed up at a scene. We are getting protection for her mother and Sara is keeping her gun on her everywhere she goes._ ” He remembers the amount of trouble Sara got in when it was discovered that she carried a backup gun.

_“Last time she was like this was when Basderic was framing her.”_

_“We also think that one of our CSIs is helping him.”_

_“I am on my way tomorrow, and don’t worry about calling Mandy she works here now and she is a CSI too.”_

_“Thank you, Nicky, can you and Mandy stay with Sara and Gris.”_

_“How did you know?”_

_“The two of you flirted with each other like Greg and Morgan who are now living together. I only know about them because Ecklie told me.”_

_“That family really did like getting together in every shape and form. When Sara and Gris got back together it probably showed us that love can change people.”_

_“Nicky what do you say about the two of you staying there, it can give Sara a piece of mind with her surrogate brother who still carries and his girlfriend who she knows to staying with them.”_

_“Of course, I would love to stay with them. Have they told you about their engagement yet?”_ He plans on asking Mandy to stay with him anyway and plans to surprise Sara by showing up and talking to Gris for his spare room.

 _“Yes, how did you know.”_ She can’t believe that Nick knew before she and everyone in Vegas knew.

_“He had my help finding a top-end vegetarian restaurant when they were out at sea. Sara did not know I was in a booth in the back waiting to cheer them on and to buy them some high-end champagne.”_

_“Well, Nick I still have to call Wendy in Oregon. Hope she is still awake considering she works days now.”_

_“Ok, I’ll see you soon Cath, bye.”_

_“Bye Nick.”_ She hangs up the phone and looks for Wendy’s number. She calls a number that has been disconnected she goes to Hodges station, “David do you happen to have Wendy’s number. I seem to have an old number of hers.”

“I can call her if you want. We haven’t talked in a few months.”

“Make sure no one is around when you call, We have to make sure that only people we trust know the details of this case.” Catherine walks away happy to know that those two keep in touch. As she rounds the corner she runs into Patrise, she tries her best to remain neutral while talking to the CSI. She wants to put her on suspension or fire but can’t without due cause. She knows Greg is going to put her on a new case with Morgan to keep an eye on her.

She goes back to her office as Patrise heads into Greg’s office that held Grissom when he started as a CSI and DB Russel when Morgan transferred to Vegas. In his office, it may have some unique qualities from his past including posters of some of his favorite bands the Lois O’Neill book, his book on Vegas and things he got from all three of his supervisors. “Greg, you wanted me?”

“Yes, you and Morgan have a new scene to work on.” Patrise walks around her hands on her hips.

“Are you kidding me, I was the lead on this case. Why can’t Morgan take Lindsey?”

“Because she has run most of the evidence.”

“Greg, come on.” Greg stands up starting to believe Morgan and already on edge for Sara.

“I am your boss Clarkson, you will do as told if you don’t want to be suspended.” At this point, Morgan comes into the office to get Patrise to go to the scene. Greg and Morgan share a look.

Hodges sees Morgan and Patrise walk out the door and goes to Greg’s office, “Greg, Catherine asked me to call Wendy when no one is around is it ok if I use your office.”

“Sure, close the door and we can mask it like I am doing your evaluation.”

“Thank you, Greg,” Hodges shuts the door and gets out his phone, _“Is Wendy Simms there?”_

_“Who's asking?”_

_“David Hodges, we used to work together.”_

_“Wendy, there is a man named David Hodges on the phone for you.”_ Wendy’s coworker yells for her.

_“Hi, David what’s going on?”_

_“We need any help of CSIs that Sara and Grissom trust to come here and help us out on a case.”_

_“What kind of case?”_

_“A case that involves family that committed a crime and a new CSI trying to get rid of evidence.”_

_“Let me talk to my supervisor.”_ Wendy sees her supervisor Belinda Gates walking into her office.

_“I do have Greg right here if she needs to talk to my supervisor.”_

_“Ok, I will get back to you in the next few hours.”_

_“Talk to you then Wendy, oh and Wendy we can’t talk much about the case out of small confines. Just say it’s a big case.”_


	7. The One in two states, and a flashback

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same as Chapter one and five.

….In Portland OR……..  
Wendy walks into the office knocking on the wooden door. “Gates I just got a call from a former colleague asking for help on a big case in Vegas that requires a certain select people.”

“They want you?”

“They trust me to work the case. I was told I can’t say much about it, from what it seems it may be like what happened to a friend of ours could happen again to different friend if I don’t help out. I gave you the number of my friends if you want to talk to them.”

“That’s fine you need a vacation anyway. Go enjoy Vegas and bring that guy you left back there.” Wendy doesn’t remember talking that much about Hodges to anyone but her sister.

“Thank you, I just closed a case can I go see if there are any more seats left on a flight.”

“Yes, you may.” Wendy Simms goes to her locker and calls her sister to cancel their dinner plans stating the emergency in Vegas. In two different cities; three people are packing bags concerned about their friends and thinking about how long this case will last. Wendy is thinking that she will have to call a hotel not knowing that she will be put up free at a casino owned by Catherine in a special suite. The only plane ticket Wendy could get had a layover at the John Wayne airport in Orange County California.She hurries to her seat on her first plane in a seat two rows up from where her center seat will be on the next plane. She tries her best to read in the hour long flight. She roughly rushes through the crowd to get to the plane.

Wendy is sitting in her seat when she hears two familiar voices, “Nick did you try to get seats next to each other.”

“Yes, Mandy I did. Maybe whoever is center seat will switch with one of us.” They finish walking up to row M seats 1-3 to see Wendy.

“If one of you don’t mind may I have the window seat.” Wendy laughs knowing that almost everyone ended up with someone that used to be at the lab.

“Thanks Wendy, Mandy why don’t you sit in the middle. I know you Lab Rats got pretty close when trying to figure out the connections between each of the miniatures.” Mandy pats his chest as she sits next to Wendy.

“Do you still like Oregon?”

“Yes, but I do miss working with everyone. The people I work with now are only a team not a family.” Nick sits down.

“Maybe you can start working back in Vegas in the field. Catherine will most likely try to find a place for you.”

“I’ll see after the case is over. Who knows there may be a vacancy.” Wendy gazes more intently at Nick. “As long as all of us from the original team are working this Sara will be fine.”

“I know, she’s like a sister to me. I have talked to her many times since she left Vegas to be with Grissom. I took them to therapy once or twice and last month when he was ready to propose again I helped set it up.”

“Those two have a roller coaster of a relationship. How long have the two of you been seeing each other?”

“6 months. We first started talking again when he had to come check on a new hire. He didn’t know I was working there.” Nick looks lovingly at Mandy.

“Where are the two of you staying during this case?”

“Catherine, asked me if I would ask Grissom if Mandy and I could stay there to give Sara a piece of mind.”

“This is really doing a number on Sara, let’s hope it’s not as bad as Natalie we all saw the fallout carried for two years with that.”

“Nick, how about you stay there by yourself and Wendy and I get a room somewhere for some girltalk.”

“Are you sure Mandy?” Nick looks at the two former lab techs seeing that they needed this as much as he needed to make sure that Sara would be ok.

“Yes, Poncho, I need this as much as you need to make sure two of your longest friends are ok.” He leans over to kiss her on the forehead.

“I know Catherine is making sure everyone has accommodations for everyone.” The plane touches down at Mccarn. The threesome meets up with Brass, who is basically the shoulder for those returning to make sure nothing happens to them.

“Hi Brass,” they say in unison.

“I hear Nick and Mandy are going to Grissom's place and Mandy is going to stay on her dime at one of her casinos.”

“Actually, only Nick is staying with the stressed-out couple and Wendy and I was planning to find a motel with two rooms to sleep in. I thought it would be easier if it was just Nick there. Plus I want time to catch up with her.” Brass ushers them to his car.

“First stop is The Eclipse for the ladies,” the car ride to the casino is filled with some talking but silence until the guys walked the ladies to their room.

“Wow, Catherine went out.” Brass sets their bags down and gives them a tour of the room. Nick tells Mandy goodbye as he and Brass leave to go to the condo.

“Griss told me to tell you to text him when we get there so it could be a surprise for our Sara.”

“Thank you, how is she doing?”

“Humph, not so well. Sara being Sara tries to pretend she’s ok when she isn’t.” Nick shakes his head. “You probably should text Griss now. We’re almost there.”

 _“Almost there.”_ Grissom looks at Sara to make sure she is still asleep after he hears his phone go off. He slowly lifts her head off his lap to go to the door.

He stands waiting at the door for the car to show up. As it pulls up he walks closer to the car, but not too far to keep an eye on the house. “Griss,” Nick gets out of the car and gives him a hug.

“You go in and wait by the door while I get out your bag.”

“No, Griss, you go back inside to Sara and I’ll get my bag and put it in my room before I see Sara.”

“Be quiet, she’s sleeping on the couch.” While Nick gets his bags Grissom goes back to watch Sara after waiving at Brass. Nick goes to set his bags in the spare room when he goes back downstairs he watches Grissom put a string of Sara’s hair behind her ear and kiss her forehead. “Honey, wake up I have someone here who would like to see you.”

“Hmmm.” She snuggles against his hand.

“Sara,” she hears the voice of Nick Stokes.

She springs up hearing a voice that wasn’t there when she fell asleep. “Nick!”

“Yes, it’s me your good friend who helped set up your most recent proposal to the bugman.” Sara gets up and goes to the stairs while fixing her clothes that had gone askew while sleeping on the couch.

As they share a hug Grissom leaves them to make a pot of coffee. “Are you staying here Nick?”

“Surprise,” they hear Gris say as he walks back from the kitchen, “I wanted to help grant you more peace of mind, so when Nick called asking if he could stay here by request of Catherine I said yes. We all love you Sara and when you yelled that you were going to get the gun and carry it with you we got worried.”

“I have to protect those I love, Gil. Speaking about love, where’s Mandy?”

“She and Wendy are staying in The President's Suite at Cath’s casino.”

“Did Catherine call everyone to come here and help out.”

“She called me, Hodges called Wendy. I think she called Russel, but he is done with putting his life in danger.”

“What about Sofia?”

With a small smile, “we all know how you felt about Sofia.” Sara is shocked that everyone could tell how much she disliked that woman.

“She tried to get into my man’s pants more than once and even came to the lab when she was on suspension because of the officer-involved shooting.”

“Sara, the moment I started to let my feelings show I couldn’t look at any other woman. Even before that. When I tried I just compared them to you.”

“Even Lady Heather.” Sara already knew all about their unique friendship.

“Nicky, contrary to what Catherine and Brass say, I never had sex with Lady Heather.” Nick watched their body language and believes his former boss. “Coffee should be done.” Grissom goes back to the kitchen to make three cups.

“Sara, how are you doing, really?”

“CAN EVERYONE PLEASE STOP ASKING ME THAT. YES, MY BROTHER ISN’T DEAD. YES, HE MAY HAVE BEEN AT THE HOSPITAL WHERE MY SIGNIFICANT OTHER WAS WITH MY MOM. YES, HE MAY BE FOLLOWING US.” Nick watches as Sara’s chest heaves with her second outburst since everything started.

“I guess it’s a good time for me to come in,” Grissom enters the living room with a tray with coffee and fruit. “Honey, sit down,” he rubs her arms.

“I am getting tired of everyone asking how I am doing every time they see me.”

“I know,” he looks at Nick, “we love you so much that we don’t want to see anything happen to you. They even asked me how I am doing. They remember how I acted when we didn’t know if Natalie killed you.”

“You shook her right?” With a nod, Sara looks at Nick.

“I’m sorry for my outburst.”

“Hey, everyone has the right to get angry and frustrated every once in awhile.” With a small smile from Sara, Nick sits down next to her and grabs his coffee. “How are the wedding plans coming?”

Delighted with the change of subject manner, “reception plans.” Sara looks first at Nick then at her partner with a small smile lining his face.

“Why not a great big wedding with all of your friends. You two didn’t have one last time you deserve one this time.” The two hear a small chuckle coming from the man beside them.

“That is why we are doing a reception, Nicky. We are getting remarried with a Justice of the Peace in San Fransico and we are trying to figure out a date for the reception we know it will be during the summer this time.”

“May I ask whose decision it was to not have a full wedding?” Grissom and Sara share a look knowing he wanted her to give her a wedding.

“Mine, Gil wanted a wedding here in Vegas, but I didn’t want two big parties. We compromised, for a reception for our friends and a ceremony with two witnesses.” Nick tries to think who those two may be.”

“Have you decided on who?”

“I will be asking Brass tomorrow, Sara hasn’t decided.”

“I think she’ll pick Greg.”

“It’s in between you, Greg and Catherine.”

“Three people, why not Russel or Morgan?”

“They will be invited to the reception, whomever I want as my witness I wanted someone who knew the both of us.”

“If Catherine can’t be involved with something for the two of you, I think she will go on a rampage. Y'all didn’t see her when you sent an email saying that the two of you got hitched.”

“Let me guess,” Grissom says, “she was cursing us out and wishing she could do something for us.”

“Exactly.” Nick begins to tell the story of the day they found out.

…...Flashback…..

“Well, I be damned.” Greg is looking at his laptop smiling as Nick Stokes comes in.

“Why’s that Greg?”

“When is the last time you checked your email, Nick?” Nick goes to his laptop to open it when Riley Addams comes in.

“Something going on that has the two you smiling.” They hear yelling.

“I guess Catherine just read the email.” Riley goes to check hers but there is nothing new there. Langston comes in.

“Why is Catherine yelling at her computer?”

“Just two of our friends got married in Costa Rica without telling us. They do everything without telling us.”

A storming Catherine stomps to the shared office. “DID YOU TWO KNOW ABOUT THIS? I ASSUMED THAT HE WENT TO GO FIND HER, BUT I NEVER KNEW THEY WERE ENGAGED!,!”

“Greg told me to read my email when I got in after I heard him being flabbergasted.”

“How come I didn’t get an email?”

“Sara probably sent it after she exhausted Grissom.” Riley and Langston look at each other.

Hodges was listening in for the last bit of the conversation. “She is Sara Sidle and used to work here until last year when she left after kissing Grissom in the middle of the hallway. We found out a few months before that they were in a relationship. She came back for a few weeks after Warrick Brown was killed. What is going on between them now?”

“They just got flipping married without any of us knowing beforehand.” The seasoned CSIs look at each other, Nick knows that Catherine won’t calm down until she can rip one of them apart for not inviting them to the wedding. “We watched them dance around each other for years and when they finally get together they don’t tell us, and when they get married they don’t tell us so we can’t make arrangements to see them get married.”

“Cath, we are talking about two of the most private people in the world. We shouldn’t expect a great big white wedding. Remember that case from years ago when Nick’s car was stolen and we all had to wait for IAB and talked about what we saw at the scene. Sara said she wasn’t a fan of weddings when they are just a sake for tradition.”

“She also said she was just anti-stupid.” Catherine points out.

“Cath, Nick she said that when Gris walked in and they were together at that point.”

“We were all so blind and couldn’t see that change in her words when he was in the office.”

“I have worked here for a few months before he left, and no email.”

“Riley, only the people who know both of them will probably get the email. We are lucky enough to get the email.” Brass walks in with a giant smile on his face.

“I know all of you got an email, but I got a picture they want me to print.” The CSIs all look at Brass as he leaves with a trail of eager CSIs behind him. As he takes out his laptop and pulls up the jpeg.

“She looks happy,” Greg points out. The bright smile that both of them have on their faces as he kisses her forehead and are wrapped in each other's arms. Catherine notices that Sara isn’t wearing a dress and no white either. Grissom is wearing that darn hat. “I can’t remember the last time I have seen either of them so happy.”

“I do at least for Sara,” Hodges pipes up, “it wasn’t long before she left Vegas. It was the case about how the kid was transitioning to female.“

“When was that case?” Catherine tries to remember.

“It was when The Eclipse was being built.” Shocked faces all around, “I bumped into Sara to see a relaxed and happy Sara.”

“Still, being happy looks good on them both. Who here had Grissom following Sara?” Nick pulls out the wad of cash he kept hidden in Brass’s desk.

“Glad one thing was kept up after Warrick died, The inner office betting.” Catherine rolls her eyes.

“Doc had them getting married.”

“What about you Brass.”

“I had them married in Vegas.”

“Why are we all so calm about this? Two of our friends got married secretly and didn’t tell us to after the fact.”

“Catherine they didn’t want a big spectacle. Why don’t we call them with those who know him tomorrow.”

…..Flashback ends…..

“You two know the rest.” Nick finishes up.

“Honey, maybe we should let Catherine help plan the reception.” Grissom doesn’t want to face either woman’s wrath. “She would love to do something for us. We can tell her we have the final OK on everything.”

“Gil, she will try to make it bigger than we want it to be.”

“We will give her the guest list and tell her no more than this many people can be there. Sara we both have problems planning these things and Catherine doesn’t.”

“I know she planned great parties for Lindsey.”

“Sara, you did plan Warrick’s funeral better than I could.” Sara and Grissom turn to Nick forgetting that he was there for a moment. “You two forgot I was here didn’t you?”

“Yes, we just needed to talk about that.”

“Did you two ever forget that someone was present when you two were talking privately?”

“In a way?” At Nick’s look, Grissom expands, “when Brass was healing in the hospital from his gunshot Sara came in to see how we were doing. He woke up as we shared a small kiss.”

“Gil, you forgot the fact he had to clear his throat to get our attention from that small kiss when your arms became wrapped around my waist.”

“Can you blame me. You just said you would move in with me.”

“The two of you lived with each other for over a year before we found about you two.” He sees the guilty smiles of them. “You two did a masterful job at hiding from us. If it wasn’t for what happened the two of you probably would’ve married in total secrecy.”

“We did get engaged in secret.” Sara looks at Grissom.

“Gil!” Sara whisper yells.

“What, Nick won’t tell anyone about the first proposal.”

“I promise, I won’t.”

“Sara came to see me when I was investigating colony collapse disorder among bees, and as a bee was walking around Sara’s hand I could imagine a ring on her finger, so I said ‘we should get married.’”

“How romantic for a bug man, Sara which did you prefer this first or second?”

Sara laughs a little, “Nick we had three.”

“Let me guess the second one was shortly before your first time getting married?”

“You two better stay together this time around, if you Grissom hurt Sara again you will have to deal the brother in me.”

“I won’t leave Sara again.”

“I won’t break up with Gil over a video message too.” Sara wants to know that she is also to blame for the number of engagements.

“How long did the second one last?”

“24 hours.” He looks at the clock. “We may want to go to bed now.”

“Night guys,” Nick says.

“Night Nick,” the couple says as they climb upstairs to their room.

“Gil, thank you for being you,” Sara says as she cuddles up against him.

“You would do the same for me, Sara.” They fall asleep Sara not dreaming at all. Grissom is holding her tightly to him. Just in case she has a nightmare.


	8. Everyone at the Grissom's

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same as before

The next morning Grissom and Sara are awoken to the aroma of coffee and cinnamon rolls. They stumble downstairs and breakout laughing seeing Nick in Grissom’s old apron. “Good morning sleepy heads.” 

“G’morning Nicky. How did you get the cinnamon rolls. We didn’t have any dough for them last night.”

“When you two sleep in late, I have time to do things. You’re lucky to up before everyone gets here. Don’t worry they won’t ask how you’re doing Sara.” Sara and Grissom both take a cinnamon roll and pour them some coffee. Sara still pours a bunch of sugar in her coffee. “Well, at least one thing has changed.”

“What do you mean?” Grissom’s brows knit together. 

“I never thought I’d see the day when two of the biggest workaholics that I know would sleep in.”

“When you don’t stay up late often and sleep more these days than you ever have you get used to sleep.” Grissom watches them for a few minutes when he realized that Nick said something about being lucky to get the first two cinnamon rolls.

“Nick, are we expecting anyone this morning?”

“Just the team back together again with a few additions of Mogan, Lindsey, Ecklie and the lab techs.” Looking at the couple up and down seeing them in sleepwear, “you two may want to change if you don’t want teasing.” At the moment the doorbell rings.

“Nick can you see who that is, so we can change.” He waves them off and takes off his apron as they climb up the stairs. Nick opens the door to see Ecklie with donuts. As he walks in, he realizes that this was more like a home than he thought it would be. “Good morning Sheriff.”

“Morning, Nick. Where are Gil and Sara.” Nick points at the stairs. “Do I smell more food than my donuts?”

“I cooked some cinnamon rolls while they were still sleeping.” Sara and Grissom come down the steps to see Ecklie looking around.

“Good morning Conrad, how are you this fine morning?”

“Never would I think Gil Grissom would say that.”

“I have a good woman who makes me positive.” Sara rolls her eyes.

“I remember her last few years in Vegas she wasn’t always positive.”

“Saved by the bell, you men continue talking like I’m not here.

“Come here,” Grissom takes Sara into his arms, “I haven’t said good morning to you yet.” He gives her a chaste kiss, “I’m sorry.” She pats his chest and heads for the door.

“Sorry for the delay,” she lets Wendy and Mandy right behind them are Greg, Morgan, Brass, Catherine, and Lindsey. “Are we missing anyone?”

“Yes, we are missing, Hodges, Archie, and Henry.” Sara’s eyes go wide, “we got almost anyone who worked with the greater portion of us. The more of us the better.”

“Ok Catherine.” Sara wishes she didn’t have to have as many people working on this case.

“Mhmm.” Ecklie clears his throat.

“Yes, Ecklie.”

“After today we should have at least one of us always at the lab to protect the information. I refuse to have another McKean situation.” Ecklie looks at Grissom and Sara, the two of you can not work this case.” Grissom starts to protest, “Gil, you are too personally involved same as you Sara.”

“This is the main reason why I got in contact with the old team.”

“I know. I just remember the last time I was on the outside looking in.”

“Sara,” Greg leans forward, “we have the evidence it’s not you. There is no way of you being framed this time around. We also know that the two of you have been out of the state and probably out of the country when the crime took place.” 

“I know that.”

“Sara this time you have me as a sounding board and to make you laugh.”

“I am sorry for being a jerk during that case Sara, and for many other times.”

“I appreciate that Hodges, I know you mean that now. I see it in your body posture.” With all the looks she receives, “falling for Gil made me learn body language when people aren’t guilty of anything.” 

‘Except of not admitting his feelings.’ Gil makes the silent side remark.

“Gilbert, we talked about that how many times, I understand for the longest time the job was the most important thing to you.”

“I want a straight answer from the two of you. I always got two answers when did your relationship start?”

“My answer is still the same,” Ecklie looks at Grissom who just shrugs. With looks from everyone, he sighs.

“For my relationship with Sara, it felt like our relationship started the moment she came up to me asking questions in the adorable ponytail. We then left the auditorium and walked around San Francisco even to the Golden Gate Bridge. That was in 98. We first made love in 2005 after we worked a case in a hospital for the criminally insane. What made me take that step is when one of the patients stuck a knife to her throat. We were already spending time together by that point.” 

Sara kisses him on the cheek and whispers, “They didn’t need to know that much.”

“We shouldn’t tell the two of you much. We are going to follow as much as protocol as possible.” 

“I know Ecklie, it will be weird to on the outside looking in.”

“We know that Sara, it will also be difficult to explain to our newer hires everyone who helped out with a prolific serial killer that almost killed a CSI is at the lab.” 

Wendy pokes up her head, “how about we spread out throughout all of the shifts and meet at Catherine’s every other day to talk about new findings.”

“Get burner phones, that way you can send information and no one can get ahold of it. 

“Gil and I can buy the phones.”

“You guys just have to buy the minutes. We know what the company phones look like. We can get ones that look almost exactly the same to the naked eye.”

“Sara, you two can’t have any connection to this case. I’m sorry, but this is as far as you can go.” Catherine tries to get everything through Sara’s thick head. “We love you too much and we know that you don’t want to us to put our jobs in jeopardy.” With sighs from the two former law enforcement employees, everyone is in agreement to get those phones.

“We will tell you this the only people that will any access to this information is those of us in this room. Physical evidence is under lock and key and DNA, Trace and everything else in under password protection. The password is random enough that anyone not working the case won’t be able to figure it out.” Sara is touched that such extreme steps are being taken to make sure nothing happens to her and Grissom.


	9. He's Seen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I shall not own these characters except for James, Patrise and Corlia

Meanwhile in an apartment across town Patrise is trying to figure out a way to tell James that she has been locked out of the case. “Let me guess, they did something happened to getting my DNA out of the system?”

“Password protection,” Patrise says as she stuffs a spoon of oatmeal in her mouth.

“What about the other evidence?”

“In a locker and the keys don’t leave Greg, Morgan or Catherine.”

“Talk to their boss.” James tries to keep his temper in check.

“Catherine is the boss of Greg and Morgan, and Ecklie is Morgan’s father.”

The Sidle temper flares as James gets into Patrise’s face, “YOU BETTER FIGURE OUT A WAY TO GET RID OF ALL THAT EVIDENCE IMPLICATING ME. ESPECIALLY IF YOU DON’T WANT AN ANONYMOUS LETTER SENT TO THE POLICE SAYING YOU ARE INVOLVED WITH ME AND THAT YOU TOO HELPED ME COMMIT CRIMES AND HELP HIDE EVIDENCE TO KEEP ME OUT OF JAIL.” He storms out of the door.

“I wonder if Sara has a temper like her brother. If she does she probably has raised a hand to her partner.” Patrise says out loud to no one. She tries to figure out a way to learn if she ever hurt someone by logging onto her computer and looking through old case files. “Let’s see in 2000 on a case with Dr. Gil Grissom she had to be restrained by her supervisor. That’s good. In 2005 she was insubordinate to Catherine and Ecklie. That would usually get someone fired. This was the last one until she came back where there only two instances of her losing her temper.” She logs off realizing that Sara got some form of help.

What Patrise doesn’t know is that everything she does is being tracked and there is an alert sent to Greg’s, Catherine’s and Ecklie’s computers about her looking through old case files.

When the next shift starts Patrise is surprised with her three bosses’ waiting for her she almost recoils as she sees their faces. “Why were you looking into old files that don’t pertain to any of your cases.”

“I interviewed her and I thought she was lying.” At this point, Hodges comes into the breakroom pretending not to be listening in. The three seasoned current and former CSIs made sure that Greg would be there to take notes in his newly purchased phone. They now have almost enough evidence to suspend her.

“If you step one more toe over that line you will be suspended without pay while we bring in someone we trust to look at all your cases.” They take notice of how her eyes go big at that threat, Hodges does too and he starts to think of a way to get Wendy to look at her cases. He walks out of the breakroom into Henry and motions him to follow outside to the same place where Sara, Nick, Greg and Warrick met to see what Catherine and Keppler were up to.

“What’s going on Hodges?” He just smiles creepily.

“Well, we may have a dirty CSI and a way to get her out CSI and a way to make sure Grissom and Sara stay safe.”

“If she is forced to leave CSI before the case is finished Patrise or James may go and hurt them or Laura.” Catherine comes out.

“So we shouldn’t even be suspended.” Catherine tries to think of another way to make it seem like no one is up to her.

“We need her to handle an insignificant piece of evidence.” Catherine walks back into the lab leaving Hodges and Henry staring at her in the wake. They think she forgot one of the things Grissom taught everyone, that all evidence is important to a case.

…………..

“Morgan follow me.” Morgan gets up from her case with Patrise who is oddly quiet.

“What’s going on Catherine?” Morgan says as she closes the door behind her.

“Are you keeping an eye on her?”

“She’s barely said a word since walking in the layout room.”

“We probably frightened her with the threat of a suspension for going through Sara’s old cases that had her reports of anger outbursts mostly before she told Grissom about her past and the few instances since they got married. I am glad that she doesn’t have access to her file where there would be a few more complaints against her.” Morgan never knew that Sara had a lot of anger before she came to Vegas.

“Sara really got through a lot of anger issues, didn't she?”

“In 2005 your dad wanted Grissom to fire her for insubordination, but Gris took the blame for her anger by saying it was his fault for not being a good supervisor to her. That is when they started to become friends again. He did similar things for everyone when they got in trouble before it made it up to the lab director.”

“He seems a lot like Russel in that way.” Catherine looks out the door to see Patrise watching them and rubbing her shoulder.

“He was once I got used to him. When he first came in I just got demoted. Nick and I were butting heads, our family was once again falling apart.” Catherine looks up again to see her gone. “Do we think Patrise is involved romantically with James?”

“Somehow involved.”

“She often wears baggy clothes and I just saw her rubbing her right shoulder.” Catherine has to think of how to make sure the person she wants to fire won’t end on Doc Robbins' table.

“Do you think she is abused by him?” Morgan hates hearing about anyone being abused.

“Sara got out and has a big heart to not hurt people, but James didn’t get out.”

“Don’t blame their parents, I believe that people have enough free will to not become like their parents. I am myself, but not exactly like either of my parents.”

“Before you came around everyone on night shift hated your dad. The only time we liked your dad was when he let us work the case of Warrick’s death.”

As Patrise walks away from the lab she feels her phone going off, “ _have you figured out a way back in.”_

_“No, I was just threatened to be put on suspension, because I just looked through old case files of your sisters. She in the past had issues with anger and it practically came to a stop in 2005.”_

_“Why would you look for that.”_

_“Family history. I got to go to a new scene.”_

_“Fine, I’ll see you after shift.”_ After James hangs up he walks up the driveway to where his sister and her partner are staying. He walks up to the door tries to knock, but ends up walking away not ready to be arrested. He leaves not noticing that the neighbors are watching him.

The elderly neighbor Corlia went to their door and rang the doorbell. She is surprised to see Nick standing there. “Are Gil Grissom and Sara Sidle here.” She met Nick back in 2007 after Sara came home from the hospital.

“Yes, they are, Gris, Sara a neighbor is here to talk to you.” Nick opens the door wider and motions her in. They walk to the couch to see how Sara and Grissom sit up straighter when the older woman enters. She always reminded him of his mom.

“You two don’t have to do anything, I just have to say something. A few minutes I was getting my mail and I saw a man walking up to your door and he almost knocked on the door. He looked similar to you Sara.” Sara gets up and heads to the bedroom. “Did I say something?”

“No you did not, but can you describe in detail what he looks like to me,” Nick says as Grissom gets up to follow Sara.

“Are you sure I did nothing wrong?” Corlia never knew anything about Sara’s past.

“There are things going on at the moment that are bothering Sara. Can I take you down to the station or call someone to get a sketch of the guy you saw?”

“Yes, you may.” Nick gets out his phone to text Catherine.

_ “James has been seen by a neighbor here. Get a sketch artist.” _

_ “Meet you at PD in 20.” _

“Come on, I just have to set the alarm.” Nick shows Corlia to his rental and drives to PD.

…..

“Honey,” Grissom slowly approaches as Sara is loading her Glock 22. She turns around with fear in her eyes, “Sara, we have a lot of security here.”

“Gil, he was at the door. Who knows what he would’ve done when Nick opened the door or you. I can’t have anything happen to you or Nick.”

Grissom steps up to Sara and slowly takes her gun from her makes sure the safety in on and brings her into his arms. “Sara, we can’t understand how hard this is for you, but I can promise to be careful.”

Sara looks into his eyes and gives him a small kiss, “Gil, I don’t I have ever been this scared before. I have been angry like this but never scared.”

“Your brother is showing up everywhere. You know he has broken the law wants to see you and your mom.”

“Gil, do you think he has a murder gene, if so how did I escape it?”

“Sara, you don’t let your childhood define who you are. When everything was starting to affect you went to talk to your mother in California. You are the strongest person I know. Your strength and heart are some of the things that made me fall in love with you.”

“Gil, how should I deal with this? He was at our door, close to my mom, close to Eli and is suspected to know a CSI.”

“You let our friends do their job and you let everyone who loves you, love you.” He directs them to the bed, “I should've taken this advice when you were under the car.”

“Ok, I will.” She leans to give him another kiss. “I love you Gilbert.”

“I love you too Sara, I have an idea, I know you want to be married in San Francisco, but we should do it here after the case here in Vegas with our friends.”

“Gil, I don’t want a big wedding.” Sara gently reminds him.

“What I mean is, we call up Catherine and Brass and ask if they can be a witness for us, and if we stay here a few months longer after the case is solved Cath can help us plan a reception.” They are sitting on the bed by this time holding hands. “Just think about it, this place has been as important to us as much as California, but all of our friends are here.” Both Grissom and Sara hear their alarm system gets put on and the door shut.

“You think Nick took Corlia to PD to get a sketch of my brother?” Grissom just smiles at that. He leans in to kiss Sara as she deepens this kiss they fall back on the bed.

……..

“Right this way Ms. Richardson,” Nick, Catherine direct her to a private area to get a sketch of James. “This is Sydnee, she is our sketch artist.” Sydnee gets out a pen and a notepad.

“Can you please describe this man to me.”

“He had dark hair that was greying, a long nose with his nostrils coming out a little bit. His eyes were oval in shape. Broad shoulders. He looked angry and confused. That is all I can remember.”

“That’s ok, thank you for coming in.” Nick stops Catherine.

“Corlia, can you please wait out the door for me.”

“Sure.” She steps out the door.

“Cath, we may have to convince Sara and Gris to get married here. Sara doesn’t want a big wedding since this is their second time getting married, but Gris wants at least a reception where everyone they love can be. This was not only us CSIs and former lab rats can be there, but also Laura. She may not always be in the best mind, but she deserves to see her daughter get married.”

“Or, we can secretly plan it and have them come to the casino and have someone like Brass officiate.” Nick shakes his head.

“Grissom wants Jim to be a witness, so we can have him be The Best Man, and have you as Maid of Honor.”

“How did you get Sara for me to be a witness.”

“You were in the running for a witness for Sara along with Greg and I. Sara wanted someone to be her witness that was around when she and Grissom started a relationship.”

“Still how did you convince her in the first place over you or Greg?”

“I told her how you reacted when they emailed us about being married.” Nick looks to Corlia, “I better get her back.”

Nick and Corlia take the back entrance out of PD. After he escorts her to the door he walks back to where he is staying. After entering the code he hears that the condo is silent so he turns the tv.

Sara and Grissom are lying exhausted on the bed when they hear the tv. They burst out laughing, “at least he was gone the full time and didn’t hear us.” Sara states.

“I wonder what took so long?”

“He probably took her down to the station to get a sketch and walked her to the door. Nick always made sure that everyone was taken care of.” Grissom raises his eyebrows. “That was one time, and I told him I was ok. You came to pick me up anyway and made sure I went to PEAP.” Sara puts her head on his chest.

“After that, I made sure I became a better friend to you.”

“You did Gil, that moment may be one of my most embarrassing ones, but you made sure I took time off and got help.”

“I was always more than a boss to you.”

Sara sits up and looks down at him, “Seriously do you catalog everything I say.”

“Most things. Honey that admission came as a shock to me at that time. Yes, we flirted from time to time and you also said you moved to Vegas for me.”

“A short time later you found out about my childhood.”

Grissom smiles at her, “We should probably go downstairs.” They detangle themselves and get dressed.

“Enjoy your little romp in the hay,” Grissom and Sara didn’t realize that their hair is still disheveled. “Your hair is messed up guys and you were up there for awhile.”

Grissom doesn’t answer, “Nicky, Gil and I haven’t made love since before this happened.”

“Okayyyy, can we please change the subject.” Nick becomes uncomfortable hearing two of his friends talking about having sex. To him hearing this much makes him think of his parents having sex.

“Gil, you were the one who told our friends when we consummated our relationship.”

“You know to me when we first met it felt like our relationship started.”

“Guys, I have something to say.” They look at Nick.

“Cath and I will plan your reception here in Vegas.” With looks from them, “Greg and I will also officiate, and Brass and Catherine will stand up next to the two of you. The only other two people that will be in attendance will be your mom Sara and Lindsey. This way only family will be at the wedding.”

“Nick I don’t want something big for a wedding.”

“Can you let us do this for the two of you. Yes, the reception will be a little larger with Doc Robbins with his wife, Super Dave with his and their little boy, and all the lab techs that were there when the both of you here. They are already here anyway.”

“Are you and Gil on the same wavelength or something?” Nick looks at Sara, “he was just asking the same thing to me for the same reasons.”

“Sara, I just want to be married to you again. I know it’s a piece of paper.”

“Gil, I also want to be Mrs. Grissom again and wouldn’t mind to be married here, but with everything going on right now I don’t think it will be a good idea.”

“The two of you sure have changed in the past few years.”

“We know, we no longer hide behind a mask and talk about our emotions. I don’t want to risk becoming a lone whale again.”

“A lone whale?”

“When Grissom came back to Vegas before we got back together, he talked to the man blaming Heather for everything he did wrong. Gil talked about a whale and he did that as a message to me too. I did not hear it. After Heather’s final interview, Lindsey brought me the DVD and said that I should watch the end of it. In that interview, he told Heather that he always loved me.”

“Lindsey definitely deserves to see you two get married this time.” Grissom leaves the living room.

“Nicky, I appreciate the thought.” Sara gives a small smile.

“Sara please give us this. We saw you two dancing around each other for years and if it wasn’t for Lindsey you would still be at CSI and Gris would be out at sea.”

“Nick, after everything Gil and I have been through I want the ceremony to be private.”

“Please, we love the two of you and want to give you something that you will always remember.” Grissom comes in not realizing that Nick is still trying to convince Sara.

“My record also is clean.” With Nick’s confused look, “before Ecklie called me I was being arrested on a boat for trespassing when I was trying to prove that the owners were illegally harvesting shark fins. I wanted to be able to protect something or help out a creature.”

“See that is even more reason for the two of you to get married here in Vegas.”

“Nick, I don’t want to get married someplace that isn’t known for romance.”

“The place where you and Gris started dating and had many firsts is not romantic enough?” Sara sits back and thinks about what Nick said.

“Promise me only the team and my mom will be invited to the ceremony.” Sara concedes.

“Of course I promise that. I’ll make sure Catherine knows that too.”

“OK you and Catherine can help Gil and I plan more. Tell Catherine there is no way I’ll wear a white wedding dress.”

Nick gets up and kisses her on the cheek, “that’s all we ask for.”

Grissom sits next to Sara, “you sure about this,” he whispers in her ear. She opens up his hand and writes ‘yes’ into it. “Let’s do this.”

“When Days starts Mandy and I will go to the lab, Wendy will be with Swing.” Sara goes wide-eyed.

“Nick, I am not supposed to know that.” Nick shrugs as a so what. The three continue to look at each other they jump when the phone starts to ring. “I’ll get that.”

The voice is disoriented, _“is this Sara Sidle?”_

_“Who's asking?”_

_“Someone that was important you or at least was.”_ Sara signs to Gil to get him and Nick over to the phone.

_“Everyone important to me wouldn't use a voice manipulator.”_

_“The reason I am using it is no one can identify my voice. I know your a CSI and the man you co-Inhabitat with was one too.”_

_“James, please just turn yourself in.”_

_“So you can be the only Sidle to never have any legal troubles no thank you.”_

_“James, it would be easier for you to turn yourself in.”_

_“If you ask me that one more time dear little sister, say goodbye to your man. One of you will disappear.”_

_“Not the first time brother.”_

_“I know that this time it won’t be by a killer, but by family.”_

Grissom is now trying to keep his temper in check as he hears the dial tone and Nick cursing because he couldn’t get in contact with someone to trace the call. “Sara, Gris try to stay near each other at all times. Now, all we have to do is to get Ecklie as the Sheriff to sign off on a protection order.” Nick leaves the house and the two people go up the stairs to load the gun.

“Gil, I know how you feel about guns, but now it's needed.” He picks up the gun and puts it on the table.

“Sara, what about your mom?”

"I don’t know about that part, but Gil I can’t live if something happens to you. I already know how it is to live without you to love.”

“We both know how it feels.”


	10. Sara's gone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I shall not own these characters. Thanks to my marvelous editor my BFF IRL Selena.

….Days later…..

Grissom is waking up early one morning he turns over expecting to feel Sara’s warm body. When he doesn’t feel it he assumes that she got up a little while ago. He is about to call for her when he sees a piece of cardstock that is addressed to him. “YoU sHoUlD’vE lIsEnTeD mE. NoW yOuR pReCiOuS sArA iS wItH mE. I bEt YoU rEgReT oRdErInG iN lAsT nIgHt.”

“NICKOLAS!” Grissom yells with his voice wavering as he tries to hold it together. Nick runs into the bedroom to see his former boss shaken to the core. “I thought this was from Sara until I read it. It’s from,” his voice waivers as he wipes his hand over his face, “James.”

Nick walks up to him grabs a tissue to take the letter from him. “Gris, I am going to go call Catherine and the rest of CSI. We will need to give our statements.”

“DON’T YOU THINK I KNOW THAT! I WAS A CSI FOR BASICALLY MY WHOLE ADULT LIFE. I KEPT TELLING SARA WE WERE SAFE IN OUR CONDO WITH THE SECURITY SYSTEM, YOU AND THE COPS NOW STAYING IN FRONT OF THE HOUSE. MY FIANCE IS NOW MISSING. JUST LIKE WITH NATALIE THIS TIME WE HAVE NO CLUES ON WHERE SHE IS.” Grissom shrinks down onto the bed.

“Gil, come with me downstairs so I can get in contact with everyone and we disturb less of the scene.” Grissom lets Nick help him up and down the stairs. Nick notices how everything looks. Grissom is in a daze and doesn’t see how things are knocked over. Nick leads him to the back porch and is glad that everything looks how it did yesterday when he and Mandy shared a moment talking about the wedding coming up in the next few weeks. He gets back inside to make him some tea and sees even more evidence of a struggle. _“10-57 Sara not here note left on the bed.” Nick sends it to Catherine._

 _“Contact Mandy and Wendy I got Morgan, Greg. and Lindsey at PD.”_ In 20 minutes their place is swarming with activity. Catherine walks up to Grissom still sitting in the same chair looking at a tree. She leans down and puts her hand on his knee. “Gil, it’s Catherine. I need to take your statement.”

“I woke up feeling the space next to me where Sara always sleeps. It was cold. I thought she woke up a while ago. I was about to call out to her when I noticed a letter addressed to me. Sara and I sometimes leave letters out for each other when one wakes up early. The last thing I remember is yelling for Nick.”

“Gil, do you remember feeling anything before waking up?” He shakes his head no. “Ok, Gil you can stay with one of us for the time being.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everything is trashed here. Nick will be staying with Mandy and Wendy.”

“Catherine”, Ecklie pokes his head out. “We found something.”

Grissom starts to get up, “Gil, you have to stay here. Your condo is a crime scene and you are too emotionally involved to help out plus you are no longer a CSI.” She pats his shoulder as she heads back in. “What did you find?” Greg hands her a washcloth,” chloroform.” If he used that why is there a disturbance.”

“I think this was used on Grissom to make sure he didn’t forget anything. If he used one on Sara it was probably what helped end the struggle.” Catherine looks around more to see a piece of paper sticking out of the bookcase.

“If YoU fOuNd ThIs, tHiS iS yOuR oNlY wArNiNg To DrOp ThE cAsE yOu HaVe On Me.”

“Morgan get me an evidence bag, I found another letter. We also will need to bring Patrise in to be questioned.” Catherine is becoming increasingly worried for the woman who captured the heart of her dear friend years ago and has been a friend of hers for years. After she takes a picture of the letter she goes to see how Wendy is doing with the bodies of the cops.

“There is evidence of a potato silencer was used to kill these guys. Has anyone checked on her mother?”

“Brass is with her and they set up a room right next to Laura’s for him and added extra security to her floor.”

Wendy leans over one of the cops to see what the smell is emanating from him. “Garlic bread?” She takes a picture after picture of the surrounding area. “Has Archie gone over the security cameras yet.”

“The footage was sent to him and Henry is asking the neighbors if they saw anything weird early this morning.” Catherine looks up to the sky hoping that Sara is still alive.

Patrise is once again trying to break the password on the evidence when Morgan pokes her head around the door. “Come with me, Clarkson.”

,......

As Sara wakes to a musty smelling room she gets her bearings and knows that she isn’t with Gil. “Good Morning sister.”

“James.” She scowls at him, “why do you want to hurt me?”

“You have a perfect life now because you were still a kid when mom killed dad.”

“James, if you wanted help as an adult all you had to do was pick up a phone and I would’ve helped you same as Gil after I told him about our family.” Sara looks around more to see any defining characteristics of the room. He kicks her.

“Look at me, Sara Elisabeth.” Sara looks up and she sees her father's anger reflected in her mother's eyes. “I know you were able to get over everything we went through.”

“Not until I almost self-destructed in front of Gil. That was brought on by being kidnapped by a woman who blamed the death of her foster father on Gil, so she took the one thing he ever loved.”

“Well, this is to hurt anyone who ever cared about you and was misled by who you are.”

“How did you get me?” With an evil smile, James sits down next to Sara and tries to brush some hair aside, but Sara flinches remembering all the times her dad did that.

“I killed those cops, entered your passcode that I watched people enter. After I got inside I made sure that your friend Nick wasn't there. He was fast asleep, then to make sure your loverboy didn’t wake up I used chloroform. You woke up as I was taking you so I poured a little more to get you to sleep. I never hit you, but I made it look like we had a struggle.” He poured a little water for himself, “if you don’t try to escape I won’t hurt you again.” His phone rings. “Patrise.”

“ _I am about to be interviewed by someone named Wendy.”_

_“This time you have no involvement, and I got my phone signal to bounce of multiple towers.”_

_“James, they told me you kidnapped Sara. You said you wouldn’t hurt anyone else.”_

_“She’s my sister, I have the right to talk to her.”_ He hangs up on her.

“Who is Wendy?” He storms close to Sara’s face.

“Someone I worked with for a few years.” He hits her, “James remember you promised to never hit me like mom and dad.”

“You also now know more about mom.” James snarls.

“Mom has schizophrenia, it came up from all the abuse she received from dad, can I at least sit up?”

“No, you may not. At least until I can trust that you won’t escape.”

……

Patrise is led to interview room B by Wendy. “You know we have expected your involvement for a few weeks.” Patrise doesn’t say a word. “You realize that even if you didn’t help in Sara Sidle’s kidnapping you will still be going down.” Wendy sits down, “Sara is still well-loved around here.”

“I know you don’t work here, so I don’t have to answer.” Patrise folds her arms and sits back in her chair.

“I was called here because your friend James DNA was found at a crime scene and started following two of my friends around. Now, Sara has been missing for who knows how long and I have a feeling you know where she is. “With the team that has been assembled, they will not stop until she's found.”

“If I know James, they will never be found. By the who is on the other side of the mirror?” Det. Vartann holds her back as Catherine wants to go in the room.

“Lou, let me go, she knows where Sara is.” Catherine tries to fight him off.

“Catherine, I also care about Sara. We have to stay calm for Grissom.” They go back to watching the interrogation.

“Patrise, we know you have been trying to get to evidence that isn’t from your case.”

“I want my lawyer and union rep.” Wendy walks to the door.

“By the way, you are being held for evidence tampering.” Wendy walks out the door as a cop arrests her. Catherine and Wendy walk through the doors to the lab to see Grissom storming around. “Grissom,” Wendy comes up to him, “let’s go to the breakroom.”

When they enter the room Grissom sees a crossword puzzle. He picks it up and tears it apart. Catherine stares at him thinking she would never see the day he tore apart something that he holds dear. Lindsey was sitting there watching it happen. “Grissom, sit down and I’ll make you some of Greg’s Hawaiian coffee.”

“Sara and I always do the crossword puzzle together in the morning.” He looks at the paper torn in half and is able to read one clue down 11 words, a person who dislikes humankind and avoids human society. “Misanthrope.”

“What?” Catherine doesn’t know why he said this.

“One of the clues. The first time she helped me solve a crossword was when the team had the case of those twins who never knew each other but would’ve met not long after they were killed.” Grissom sets back in the chair, “after we solved the case I was sitting in my desk reading when Sara came by after waiting to be called on the stand.” He smiles a little, “she picked up the crossword and said I missed one. The one I missed was misanthrope. She then told me she wouldn’t wait up.”

“When was this?”

“Shortly before my sabbatical. Her beauty that day can’t be put into words.” He looks up at the to see her picture on tv.. “Where did he take her?” He gets up and storms around the room. Catherine’s phone rings. “Sofia?”

“It made news out here, do you guys need an extra hand.” Catherine looks at her longtime friend who is reaching in his pocket for his wedding ring.

“Yes, we will.”

“Was it really someone she knew?”

“Used to know. It was her brother.”


	11. Her Brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adhere to the previous chapter for disclaimer

“You still want to stand up?” James brings a collar and a rope out from behind his back. Sara looks at it and is hoping she will survive this. “ANSWER ME!”

“Yes, I do.” He puts the collar around her neck and ties the rope to the bed that is nailed to the ground. After that, she stands up her knees cracking. “James, did you not get help?”

“No, I did not get help. My sister didn’t even contact me after she graduated.”

“Are you blaming me, James I thought you were dead until I got the call about your DNA at the scene.”

“I bet you can’t wait to see me in jail Sara.” She shakes her head no, “really?”

“Why would I want my brother in jail. He never raised a hand to me as a kid.” James checks the time. He leaves Sara and only comes back and throws a burger at her. “James, I don’t eat meat and haven’t for nearly 20 years.” He then takes the burger and throws chips at Sara.

“That’s all you’ll get until the morning.” He leaves again Sara tires to listen to what’s outside the window. She tries to get to it but can’t. She goes back to the bed and lays down trying not to fall asleep.

….  
“Gil, it's getting late you should go try and get some sleep,” Catherine says as she sees him staring out to where Hodges door to his lab used to be.

“I can’t sleep not knowing if she’s ok.” He looks at her, “when we were separated I knew she had the remaining members of our team and her new team to keep an eye out on her.” He takes out his ring. “We were making more plans for getting married here. Now, with this, I want to marry her in a different state.” 

“Gil, you and Sara have a great love and I have a feeling she is more worried about you right now.” She looks up to see Sofia running toward the office. Catherine holds up her finger to wait for a second. “I got a call from someone that used to work here with us. She wants to help find Sara.”

“I don’t care who comes to help as long as we find her and soon.” Catherine waves Sofia in.

“Grissom,” Sofia walks up to him, “I heard she was kidnapped again.” Grissom just looks at the woman that before it was made news about his relationship to Sara kept trying to ask him out on dates. He walks back from her and grimaces.

“My fiance is missing, please just find her.” Grissom just leaves the building hoping his condo isn’t a crime scene any longer. He walks up to his car and is about to get in when he notices something on his windshield. “Please not another damn letter. I can’t take anymore.”

Greg was passing by with food for everyone including Grissom at this point. “Hey, Griss can you please help me take some of this in so I can get that collected?” Grissom snatches the food from Greg as Greg heads back to his Denali. They rush inside, “we have food and another letter that was on Gris’ windshield.” Everyone comes running, Lindsey with an evidence bag. Grissom tried to follow them to the layout room but is stopped. “Gris as much as you want to you can’t come with us.” Grissom tries to protest. “To help us out why don’t you lay out the food. I promise you that we are going through the evidence with a fine-tooth and comb.”

“I know when I am being placated.” Lindsey comes back out and takes over for Greg.

“Uncle Gil,” his eyes go wide he hasn’t heard that since she was little. “I want to get this bastard as much as you do. Sara helped me communicate with my mom as I got older and treated me like an adult when no one else would. She even helped me become a CSI. I owe her so much. I also know she wouldn’t want you to do anything to hurt you.” Grissom’s shoulders deflate, “come help me place out everyone’s meals. I got kicked out by mom.”

“Why?”

“She told me I was reminding her of you when Sara was kidnapped before.” Lindsey whisks away bright red hair flowing behind her. Grissom walks into the break as she throws something at him. “You need that more than I do.” Grissom opens his hand to see a small butterfly pendant. 

“When did you get this?”

“Sara gave it to me when she left to follow you.” Lindsey puts more of the takeout containers on the table, “you coming?”

“I gave this to her when we started dating. The day she was kidnapped she forgot it on the nightstand.” Grissom walks into the room more.

“I know, she told me even though you two got divorced she kept it in her wallet.” Lindsey sits down to her food, “come on Greg got you a veggie burger.”

Grissom sits down, “how did he know the main meat I eat now is seafood.”

“I think he knows Sara more and that she would make sure that you eat healthier.” He chuckles at that. Everyone starts to filter into the room as he chuckles. Catherine smiles that her daughter got Grissom to cheer up. She sits next to her daughter as she munches on her burger, Morgan on her veggie burger, Greg on his double cheeseburger.

“I am the only man eating a veggie burger.” Everyone else looks at him and notices that he has a butterfly pendant right next to him. After Gris finishes eating he puts it in his wallet. “How horrible was the letter?”

“You don’t want to see it,” Greg states. He is remembering the pictures of Sara’s laid out across a bed with dirt on her pajamas.

“Is there a couch here somewhere, I want to be close by just in case you get a lead on to where she is. I know I can’t work with you guys.” Catherine gets up and motions him to her office.

“I let Lindsey sleep here when she refuses to go home when working a hot case.”

“Thank you, Cath.” He collapses to the couch and wishes he had the lavender scent invading his nostrils.

…..The next morning…

James comes into the room and throws a newspaper at her. “You seem to have a lot of people that care about you.”

“I worked with most of them for over 10 years. They are family to me.” Sara opens up the newspaper, “oh Gil.”

“What are you gushing over.” James tries to snap the paper from her.

“My Gil, used a picture of me when we got engaged two months ago.” She fingers over the picture, “can I do the crossword, it’s something that I always do with him in the mornings.”

“Whatever,” he throws a pen at her. Sara gets to work right away filling in ‘dominatrix’ as James comes back in and puts eggs in front of her. “Eat up, I don’t want you to die on me.” Sara doesn’t voice how long someone can live without food or water. “How do you know what a dominatrix is?”

“Gil is friends with a former one. After Gil helped her get in contact with her granddaughter she stopped and became a sex therapist. She and I never got along.” James tries to form a plan, “she will never do anything to hurt him, she encouraged him to follow me and she didn’t react when he told her he loved me and I was his best friend.” James looks at her shocked that she knew what was going on. “We have the same look when we are planning something.”

“I bet your little man just enjoys it.” Sara doesn’t answer she knows the times he tried not to pin her against the layout room table when they were dating.

“He is not little in any way.” James raises his hand as he tries to hit her and realizes that he never got a call last night from Patrise.

“Do you know why I haven’t got a call from Patrise?”

“She’s probably in a jail cell for evidence tampering and her involvement with you.” Sara hopes that Grissom didn’t interrogate her, “my team will stop at nothing to find one of their own. That is what family is for.”

“You found new brothers didn’t you?”

“Yes, a few sisters and a father figure who would do anything to protect those he cares about. He was a cop for years and was close to Gil and they still email each other. He even came out on our boat.” 

“I was replaced wasn’t I?” He runs up to her and slaps the plate out of her hands as it shatters a shard flies up and hits Sara over the eye. James stumbles back remembering a time that his father did that to his mother for getting Sara a new book. “Look at what you made me do Sara.” He runs to the bathroom for the first aid kit and goes back to his sister. As he tries to fix it up she flinches. “Let me take care of you, Sara.”

“James, I may need stitches. Remember when dad did this to mom she needed a few stitches.”

“You are not going to the doctor, and don’t even think about any of your CSI friends.” James puts on a gauze. “We are going to redress this every few hours and give up plenty of protein.”

“James, I can’t lose 2,000 mL of my blood before I die.” James started to put more pressure on the wound.

“You are my sister, I hate to see you bleed.” Sara tried to think of what to say.

“My heart is bleeding for my best friend and partner. I know he is worried sick for me. I know that our friends are not letting him near the evidence as we have seen many times what happens when family of one of ours goes missing.” James just smiles.

“If that’s the truth they aren’t letting him see the pictures of you on the bed holding your ribs. Those pictures showed that you were alive.”

“James, the people who are analyzing them are part of the top lab in the country, and most of them were taught by Gil or me.” He thinks of how to mislead them.


	12. Grissom admits how Sara looks at everyone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you locked inside or may have lost a job due to Covid-19. I don't own this wonderful team of criminalists. Thanks again to my BFF for being my beta.

……. Meanwhile at the lab……….

“Eghhh,” Grissom looks around to see that yesterday wasn’t a nightmare. He gets up from the couch cracking his back and walks to the layout room to see the pictures of Sara and the letter. As he examines the picture he sees how Sara is holding her side and her wet cheeks.

“What do you notice, that we may have missed.” Wendy comes into the room.

“Jesus Wendy, don’t sneak up on someone like that.” He holds his chest. “Sara’s cheeks are wet.”

“Can you guess why she is holding her ribs?”

With a snarl, he replies, “The bastard kicked her.” Catherine walks into the room.

“There you are Gil, I got a call from the jewelers. Her engagement ring has been sized and her wedding ring is ready.” Grissom takes out his ring again and twirls it around his index finger when his phone rings. “Are you going to answer that?”

He looks down, “Unknown caller.” He picks it up, _“Hello?”_

 _“Is this Gil Grissom.”_ He stands up straighter.

_“It is.”_

_“How much do you love my sister?”_

_“James?”_ Grissom tries to keep his voice neutral.

“ _Yes, now answer me, how much do you love my sister.”_

 _‘More than anything. More than bugs, more than saving sharks, more than being a CSI.”_ James remembers that article he read that he is a world renowned entomologist.

_“Would you like to talk to her?”_

_“Please I need to know if Sara is alive.”_ The phone gets handed over to her.

 _“Gil, is that you?”_ He nods his head forgetting that Sara can’t see him.

 _“Honey, how are you? Please tell me you are ok. I have been worried sick for you.”_ He tries to hide the worry in his voice.

 _“Gil, I’m fine remember what happened to Greg when we were dating?”_ Sara’s voice cracks as she hears his voice.

_“Yes, I do. I had a feeling about that. I know you better than I know myself.”_

_“I love you too Gil, let the team do their job. The ones you didn’t train, I promise you they are amazing at what they do.”_

_“Be good honey, remember our counseling while in there.”_

_“I am, and I heard him talking to someone that his phone signal is bounced off many towers.”_

_“I’ll relay that.”_ James comes back to the phone.

_“I love you, Gil, I still plan to marry you again and this time in front of our former team,”_

_“I love you too Sara.”_

_“Now you have proof of life, you will either get a phone call or a letter until I am cleared of all charges. Just remember they were my family before yours.”_ The dial tone is heard by everyone in the room.

“He kicked her in the ribs, but she still can breathe.” He looks around for the letter. “Can I read the letter, I know everything about her family. I can probably decode something from it.” Wendy hands him the letter.

“YoUr LiTtLe WoMaN iS aLiVe. ShE wAs My SiStEr BeFoRe ShE wAS yOuR lOvE.” Grissom rereads the letter.

“He is more like her parents but as he is almost 60 and never received any help something made him break.”

“When did Sara get help for everything?” Wendy asks.

“She got help a few different times. Once by a PEAP counselor when she started to rely on drinking, once from me then after she left Vegas to bury her ghosts.” He goes up and asks Wendy to log into the computer.

“What are you doing Gil?” He looks up to her and hands her the letter.

“We need to look into his medical history and a deep check at that and we need Brass to keep a good eye on Laura. She still is apart of this even if she isn’t aware of it. James may be trying to get his family back together.” With the confused looks he sighs, “he told that they were his family before mine. If I couldn’t protect Sara at our own condo, I will make sure her mother has around the clock protection from him. He doesn’t know how sick she is.”

“Back to what you said, how do you know that he kicked her in the ribs.”

“Cath, she told me that the same thing that happened to her also happened to Greg when we were dating.”

“If he asks what she meant by that, what will she say?”

“She’ll come up with something that is still true. She was always one of my star CSIs.” Greg entered at that.

“Did she get any gold stars for that?”

“No, she did not Greg. She got my respect for that.”

“And sex,” Greg says under his breath.

“Sara and I fell in love it was always more than sex Greggo and wherever Hodges is at the moment. What Sara and I have is special, and I never had sex with Lady Heather. In fact, she has been my only one for 20 years.” Those who have known him for years stand-in shock that he revealed something so personal. “Catherine, who is the main cop on this?”

“Cap. Vartann.”

“He’s a captain now?” His brows rise.

“Ecklie made him one, two years ago. We also have Sofia who came back to help find Sara.”

“I know. Get Vartann in here.” Greg gets out his phone to text Vartann to get over here.

“What’s Grissom doing here, he can’t work the case. He and Sara are too close.” Vartann says as he enters the room.

“Lou, he kinda ambushed us. We were just going over other evidence and he was here after his nap.”

“Why was he here in the first place?” He leans more on his right leg.

“My house is still a crime scene and the only person I loved has been kidnapped by her brother which seems to me he wants to get his family back together based on the phone call he just did to show me that she is alive.”

“You are a seasoned CSI why didn’t you find a way to get it traced.” Vartann steps closer to Grissom.

“Before I thought of it Sara told me she heard him tell someone that it’s being bounced off of many towers.” He just knows that every move will be criticised. “I know that I probably tried to get him to talk, but I needed to hear Sara’s voice. What I gathered is that he has hurt her just like their parents did to them.”

“Lou, Gris can help us get more insight into the Sidle family. We only know parts of Sara’s story, but he knows all of it. He has known her story since before they got together.” Lou grumbles about having someone romantically involved help out with the case.

“Lou, remember we used to date too.”

“Sara thought the two of you were cute together and hoped the two of you would work it out after she came back to me like how I did to her in Costa Rica.”

“What?” Both of them say together as everyone snickers.

“She is a romantic and wants everyone to have some happiness. The two of you reminded her of the two of us.” Grissom turns to Greg and Morgan, “then you two reminded her how we flirted with each other and wished that there was no rule about supervisor and subordinate dating.” He looks at Lindsey, “Sara was always so proud of you and the young woman you became. She loves you like her own.”

….Meanwhile……

“Your man knows you doesn’t he?” Sara tries to stop herself from smiling. “You Sidle don’t know when to not smile.”

“Yes, he knows me more than anyone.” James walks around the small room and realizes that he needs to redress the wound.

“I always wanted you to be happy.” He looks at her and sees that little girl he used to shield from his parents then gets angry. He raises his right hand and hits her. If someone was in the room he would hear the hand connecting with her jaw.

“You abused Patrise didn’t that’s why she did what she did and probably why you haven’t heard from her since she was interrogated.” His jaw sets.

“Do you know how to get her out?”

“I still have a good reputation in Vegas, I am not going to ruin it for anyone.”

“What did you learn about Greg when you were dating?”

“That his family has a 6th sense.”

“At what point were you in the relationship at that point?”

“We were dating for 10 months. In a short amount of time, Gil asked me to move in with him.” Sara remembers everything that happened in their early days. James snarls thinking there’s something more but can tell this is the truth.

“Fine, I’ll be back.” He storms out making a plan to get his mother. He starts to look at the place, seeing how security has risen in the past 24 hours. As he is gone Sara is thinking of how Grissom must be playing around with the ring she will be putting the ring on in a few weeks.

“Oh Gil, I know I will be marrying you again and I will suggest keeping the boat, but that we should adopt or foster some kids.” She sits down knowing her time being here may not be limited. She gets out the crossword and circles clue two as a way to keep count of how long she has been there. She looks for water.


	13. Who is her lawyer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am in the same boat as many of you who are now not working due to Covid-19. Here is another chapter. I will be posting all the chapters I have written so far today for all of y'all. As always I do not own the ragtag team of CSIs and cops. Thanks again to my amazing beta.

Grissom stands back up from the water fountain. “Gris, we are going to be interviewing Patrise again.” He looks at Catherine, “No you may not be in the interview, remember the last time we brought in someone that has a connection with one of you; the interview became really intense and had to be stopped.”

“Sara and Heather.”

“I knew she was still in love with you and Heather knew that too and she was using that to her advantage that made Sara walk out and I followed her.”

“I remember telling Sara that seeing her again made me a little speechless. Sara grows more beautiful to me. That’s why I sometimes call her my butterfly.”

“I know that the two of you have a long and difficult story, but what I know is that Sara loves you.” The two friends walk to the observation room.

“So Patrise, we know that James has kicked Sara in the ribs and that you may have a lead onto what he is planning. If you know what he is planning next we can get you a deal.” Patrise leans over to talk to his lawyer, “If he kidnaps their mom and makes her go off her medication who knows what she will do to your precious James. If he hurts Sara while she was there history may repeat itself. This time it wouldn’t be considered murder it would be considered self- defense and defense of her child.”

“Her child is 48 years old and has taken self-defense classes. Why won’t she protect herself?”

“She is a good person.”

“No one from that family is a good person. Sara is too much of a nerd and had problems with suspects. Their father was an abusive drunk, and their mother is a murderer.”

“What about James?” Wendy, Mandy and Nick say in unison as they lean forward.

“Well, hello Nicholas Stokes, I tried to tell James you are basically her surrogate brother.” With a small smile, “he hates being replaced.” Mandy discreetly puts her arm on Nick’s knee to calm him down a little. “Let me guess you two are following in their steps of boss to subordinate relationship.” Wendy looks at them.

“This is not about them, this is about you and James.” Wendy slams her hands on the table.

“Do you have any questions for my client?” The lawyer who has a crazy look in his eyes, greying hair.

“Mr. Blum, your client here has been caught trying to tamper with evidence and is a known associate with James Sidle who has kidnapped a former CSI.”

“You mean a CSI that is in a relationship with someone who nearly got arrested for trespassing. If it wasn’t for a call he got from Sheriff Ecklie he would’ve been a jail cell. They both have had a few close calls with the laws of the sea since then.”

“Have you even seen them during that time, I have. They are happy together and try to save the ocean.”

“I don’t need to.” Ronald Blum gets up from his chair and tosses it. One of the cops steps forward. “If you touch me I will sue this whole city.”

“Miss. Richardson, you realize that you are already in for up to 20 years.”

“How many people would convict someone who dated a guy who hurt a former cop from Vegas.” Patrise laughs as she says.

“This CSI has helped thousands if not millions of families find out what happened to their loved ones.”

“James better have everything he needs. We now have his picture out there.” During this Nick was keeping a keen eye on Ronald Blum.

“Mr. Blum are you high?”

“Am I high, am I high, you’re high.” The investigators look incredulously at the New York/DC lawyer. Catherine and Grissom are shocked that someone would say that.

“Cath, one of us should go see who this guy is.” He leaves the observation room and goes to the lab and logs onto it.

Ronald Blum Loses Chicago Law License for Malpractice.

“Catherine,” he runs back into the room, “he may not have a license to practice here.”

“What do you mean?”

“In May he lost his Chicago license for buying a witness’ testimony.” Catherine’s eyes go wide and knocks on the mirror. Nick comes out of the room. “I am going to call the Las Vegas Law Review board.” Grissom runs out of the room, within 20 minutes Ronald Blum is found to be three different types of drugs and escorted to a cell by Ecklie. Grissom walks into the interrogation room after everyone needs a break. “Can I call you Patrise?”

“Sure.” Grissom pulls the chair around and sits on it chest to the back of the chair and the back of the chair is facing Patrise.

“You know I was a CSI for nearly half my life, and there were a few people who tried to steal evidence. They all were caught at first signs minus a Sheriff, you are brilliant.”

“I was doing it to protect the man I want, do you want to know more about Sara?”


	14. Way Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look back at previous.

….Flashback…..

Summer 1977.

A 6-year-old with curly brown hair that makes many kids think of Shirly Temple. She just lost one of her two front teeth and asked her mom for a new book on butterflies. She loves hearing her older brother talking about his science class. She even snuck into his room at the B&B that her parents own. The B&B hasn’t had many visitors since their mom and dad got into a screaming match about Sara already reading at 3. She is woken up late one night with her parents yelling at the top of their lungs. She gets up and meets her brother at the top of the stairs. He grabs her hand to walk down the stairs. She sees her mother standing as tall as she can trying to eat off a plate. She sees her father raise a hand. James feels his sister let go of his hand and watches her run towards her parents. “MOMMY DADDY, PLEASE STOP FIGHTING.” Next thing three people realize is that Scott is hitting Sara repeatedly. She is crying as she hears something crack as her dad grabs her arm and twits it back. 

“Stop hitting my sister you ass,” James said as he pushes his drunk dad away from his crying little sister. “Sara it’s me, Jamesy, you can open your eyes.”

“James,” she opens her eyes. Laura walks up to them and takes her daughter in her arms and looks to see that Scott Sidle is gone.

Laura walks her to the hospital, James taking Sara from his mother’s arms as her arms start to droop about a mile from the hospital. Laura plans to get a book for her daughter. Laura goes to reception and James sits down on the pastel seat. “Hello, I am Laura Sidle and my daughter needs to see a doctor.”

“Age, name.” 

“Sara Sidle 6.”

“Fill these out please,” the woman with blue hair and bright pink nails hands her a clipboard and a flower pen. 

Laura walks over to her kids, Sara on her own chair head on her brother’s arm, sleeping. The 39-year-old woman and a 17-year-old boy sit and wait, hoping the girl remembers the story to tell the doctors. “Sara Sidle?” Laura wakes up her sleeping child. The three Sidle’s that aren’t drunk walk back to the examination room. “Pop up here sweetheart.” Sara gets up, “How old are you?”

“I’m 6 nearly 7.”

“How did you hurt your arm?” 

Sara sniffles, “I fell down our stairs.” He takes her down to get an x-ray. It is broken in the middle of the radius. As Sara walks back to the room to see her mom holding a new book and a stuffed butterfly.

“I am going to set her in a new cast, Mrs. Sidle. She will need to rest it for a few weeks. Can you make sure she doesn’t move her arm much.” She looks at her kids, James holding up the book for his sister.

“She will be reading that book for the first week. My daughter is brilliant and she loves science.” They all go with Sara as she picks out a light blue cast the same color as the butterfly on the cover. 

“Now honey, make sure you get a lot of signatures on that from your little friends.” She looks at him not saying she has no friends as she is always reading her books. 

“James, how do I pronounce that?” She asks after they get home James sleeps on her floor to make sure their father doesn’t come in and hurt her even more. 

“Poly-o-mmat-us ic-ar-us.” They share a small smile as she goes back to reading.

The next week, Sara is hiding in her spot in a tree reading her book as she hears a body fall to the floor. She looks up to see her father standing over her mother with a broken plate in his hand. She sinks further into the tree, so she can’t be found. 

…..Flashback ends….

“I’ll figure out a way to get you back to protecting her, what about Maia?

“She’s on a big case in D.C,” Blum says.

“I gotta go, I think I hear Sara.”


	15. She's Found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer, I have no ownership to CSI Crime Scene Investigation

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.” James runs into the room to his sister screaming in her sleep and sweating through her clothes.

“Sara, wake up. You’re having a nightmare.” Sara wakes up and scoots away from her brother. “How often do you have these nightmares?”

“Haven’t had one for over 10 years.” She glares at her brother and scoots further away from him. Sara is about to spit when there is a noise coming from outside. James takes a quick look to see it was only a stray dog. He goes outside and collects the dog. He brings it inside so someone can keep his sister company when he goes out or on the internet to get things that needed. “James, he probably has a family of his own. I remember when I left Vegas when mine and Gil’s dog was still alive I missed those two too much.”

“Fine, I got a few books for you anyway. I know you love reading.” He tosses her Walden and a book that was co-written by Grissom. “I thought he would like the second one.”

“I have one autographed with a message from Gil saying he loves me,” Sara opens up the book, “you took this from my house.”

“I thought you would like something from home, I can’t see why you love a man who loves bugs. He loves you too.” He leaves the room again and Sara runs her fingers over the words. He pokes his head into the room for a second, “I read what he wrote and you actually found someone who treats you right.”

**“Sara,**

**I know you are enjoying your time in California. Hank is whining at the door waiting for you. When you are ready I will come to visit you and your mom.**

**The team has been bugging me every day about you. Catherine and Brass wanted me to come and find you. To bring you back. I told them no, you needed to do this.**

**We just worked on a case in a jewelry store. I found the perfect ring for you. When you come back I will put it on your finger before we take the plunge into being married. I am so happy that you agreed to marry me last month.**

**I love you my Butterfly. Take care of yourself. Margaret Atwood wrote ‘I exist in two places, here and where you are.’ I may be in Vegas, but my heart is with you.**

**Love,**

**Gilbert.”** Sara rereads the sentiment from her then-secret fiancé.

“I miss you, Gil. Please find me.” Sara opens up to the first chapter and reads about the dung beetle. “James is mostly right, Gil and I had some rocky times.”

…..

 _“Gil,”_ Brass doesn’t even wait for a greeting.

 _“Laura needs family here.”_ Grissom stands up tall from the microscope. He was analyzing some of the letters.

 _“I’m one my way.”_ Grissom runs out of the lab.

“Woah there Gris where are you heading?” Greg says as Grissom runs into him.

“I just got a call from Brass telling me that Laura needs family right now.”

“I’ll drive you Gris.” They hop into his car. “Gris, how are you going to tell Laura about Sara?”

“She probably read it all about in a newspaper or watched it on the news. Her doctor may need to talk to me.” They remain quiet for the rest of the ride. “Gil Grissom second to Sara Sidle in emergency contact for Laura Sidle.”

“Dr. Grissom, right this way.” Grissom follows Dr. Dino to her office. “Laura has been having problems dealing with the news of Sara being kidnapped.” He looks down at his hands.

“I have too.” After the Psychiatrist is done talking about Laura, Grissom heads to her room.

“My future son-in-law.” Grissom smiles at Laura. “How is the planning going?”

“We were going to look at a venue yesterday.” Laura takes his hand.

“I know this is difficult, I am worried about my Sara too, but she is strong.”

“I know she is the strongest person I know.” He takes out the ring and shows Laura, “That’s beautiful.”

“It was my mother’s. Sara and I had it resized for our wedding. My mom wanted her to have after Sara was there for in the last months of her life more than anyone was. Even though we weren’t together anymore. I wasn’t being good at anything at that point. My mom sent me a letter in an envelope that had a small bulge. I opened it and the ring fell out and my mom told me that Sara was the best person I was ever in a relationship with.”

Laura reaches to a nightstand. “I got this, this morning when I was taking a walk before Brass woke up.” He is handed a letter, “I think it has something to do with Sara.”

“I’ll give it to the lab. I am sorry I couldn't save her from being kidnapped again.”

As the two remain talking Gil gets a phone call. _“Grissom.”_

 _“We have a lead on where she is,”_ Ecklie says impatiently.

_“I’m on my way wait for me please.”_

_“We will.”_

_“Thank you Ecklie._ ” He hangs up the phone

“Laura, I gotta go, LVPD thinks they found Sara.” He gives her a hug not thinking she may freak a little after he left.

………….

“Sara,” she looks up from her book, “you are my sister, I was supposed to protect you.”

“The moment you kidnapped me from my condo is when you crossed the line of protection to the line of abuse. You kicked me, hit me and slapped a plate out of my hands. I am surprised you haven’t broken any of my bones like dad did.” Sara stands up to her brother who raised his hand and as his hand was about to connect with her jaw she kicked him hard in the balls.

…..

“I have been protected and loved by a handful of people since I became an adult and they all never even thought about hurting me, James Edward. You are just as bad as dad. You need help.” Sara tries to untie herself. He grabs her ankle which drags her down. “Let me go now.”

He starts beating her when he hears a door opening. James goes through a separate door as Sara hears running down the stairs. With guns drawn Catherine and Lou enter the room. “Someone call a medic, we found Sara.”

Grissom comes running into the room and heads straight to Sara, “Honey I’m here.” Sara’s eyes are slightly open. “Please stay with me. I love you,” he says holding her body as her eyes fully close. Catherine comes closer to her distraught friends. She checks for a pulse.

“She’s alive Gil. Help is on the way.” Grissom kisses her forehead and unties her from her rope and takes off the collar.

“As soon as I can I am marrying her again.” He continues to hold Sara close until the emergency crew comes.

“What’s her name?” Grissom tries to keep hold of her hand.

“Sara Sidle.”

“How old is she?”

“48 years old.” Answers Catherine.

“Sir, you have to let go of her hand.” Grissom reluctantly lets go as they work on Sara. He follows them to the ambulance.

“I’m coming with.” Shouts Grissom. On the way to Desert Palms, she wakes up a little bit.

“Ms. Sidle, do you know what happened to you?

“Gil,” she coughs as the paramedics take off her mask.

“Honey, wait to talk to me until we get to the hospital. The team will probably meet us there.” Sara tries to sign ok, but Grissom has a tight hold on her hand. The ambulance gets to the hospital and the staff rushes her into an examination room.

Grissom goes to the waiting room and can’t be still. Greg comes up to him, “everyone else is at the scene looking through the house to see if they can find anything.”

…..

“Catherine, I just found a book Grissom co-wrote that was released when Sara wasn’t in Vegas.” Wendy says coming up to Catherine.

“I have Sara’s blood right here on a shard from a dish.” Catherine is happy that this didn’t end like it did with Warrick. Morgan is happy it didn’t end like it did with Finn.

“Wow, he wrote something in it just for her. It’s amazing and sweet.” Catherine takes the book from Morgan.

“He talked about how we reacted when she left.”

“He also said they were engaged.”

“Who was engaged?” Nick walks in.

“Grissom and Sara in 2007.” Nick chuckles, “What’s funny Nick?”

“Shortly before she was kidnapped Sara and Gris told me that they have been engaged before.” Nick pulls out a new evidence bag and heads out to the kitchen.

……..

Sara wakes up to Grissom holding her hand and looking at a ring that should be on her hand. “Gil, as soon as I’m released let’s get married.” He kisses her then. Greg knocks on the door.

“Hello, Sar, are you feeling up for a talk?”

“Sure.” Greg sits down on a chair close to Sara.

“I’ll leave you two it, I love you, Sara.” Sara watches Grissom leave.

“I think he will always regret how he didn’t notice me becoming depressed until it was too late. I also refused his help.”

“Sar, we need to talk about your experience during the abduction.” She rubs her ribs.

“Gil and I went to bed talking about our impending wedding. We were joking about the case the team worked and when we got married the first time.” Sara gets her water to get a drink of water. “Next thing I know is that I am waking up and I am not in bed with Gil. My brother was right there watching me.”

“Did he say anything?”

“He told me how he kidnapped me and how he made the place look like a mess even though he drugged me and Gil with chloroform.” She looks through the door to Grissom pacing.

“When did he hurt you?”

“Which time?”

“How many times did he kick or hit you?”

“Maybe 10 times. The first time he kicked me in the ribs and instantly recoiled.”

“We have pictures that prove about the kicking in the ribs plus whatever you said to your impatient grizzly bear out there.”

“Gil is not a grizzly bear.”

“Sara, whenever something happens to you he becomes like a typical man needing to protect those he loves. We kept him away from Patrise. He only witnessed one interrogation and found out that the lawyer wasn’t licensed to practice here in Vegas.”

“Gil is amazing at anything he puts his mind to.”

“I should get back to how James treated me.”


	16. Why is she here?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wished I owned these guys, but I was just a toddler when they came on our screen in 2000.

Grissom is walking around when a hand is on his shoulder he looks around to see someone he shouldn’t see. “Heather?”

“How is Sara?” Heather asked concerned.

“Ok, what are you doing here?”

“I know Sara and I don’t get along, but I have an ear in the office right now to keep me informed about what happens between you too.”

Shocked Grissom says, “Who?”

“A Lindsey Willows. She is bright like her mother, but doesn’t think I sleep with everyone like someone very important to her.” Heather looks at her friend, “You seem happy, well happy as one can be with their fiance in the hospital.”

“We didn’t talk much before Greg came into her room to ask her about what James did to her.”

“I have something to give to Greg.” She diverts eye contact.

“Let me guess since he lost his partner in crime he asked someone who never got along with Sara. I am glad he never found out about Hannah.” Greg pokes his head out.

“Hey Gris, you may need to hear some of this.” Grissom goes into the room.

“Sara,” he goes straight to her bed. “After you are done there is someone who wants to see how you are doing.”

“Who?”

“She heard about your stay in the hospital from Linds and knew about our relationship from her.”

“Gilbert, who is it?”

“Heather Kessler.”

“Greg, she also told me she has something for you. She didn’t tell me exactly what it was, but it has to do with James.”

“Ok, I’ll finish up here then go talk to Lady Heather.”

“After he cleaned up my wound I went to sleep and had a nightmare of the night I tried to break up a fight between my parents and my dad ended up breaking my arm.” Grissom leans to kiss her forehead. “He came into the room and woke me up after having that nightmare. He looks so much like my dad.”

“Sara, do you want to finish this later?”

“I’m almost done Greg, then you can go talk to Heather.” Sara continues her story on how everything happened.

“Next thing I know I am waking up to Gil holding my hand.”

“Do you remember how he escaped?”

“I think he escaped out of a small door.” Sara’s hand goes to her ribs. Greg leaves the room to go talk to Heather.

“You had a nightmare?”

“Yes, if it wasn’t for everyone finding me it may have happened again. I dealt with this years ago and he had to come here and bring it up again.”

“We can leave Vegas and go wherever you want as soon as you’re cleared.”

“I am going to keep my word to Catherine and Nick.”

“Me too. They have helped both of us through so much in the past 2 decades.”

“Can you believe we met 21 years ago.” Grissom sat more onto Sara’s bed, “Gil, he took the book you sent to California with the sentiment that had the ladies I was staying with swooning.”

“He also left me a few letters talking about how and why he wanted you.” He leans his head against hers and gives her a peck on the lips.

………..

“Greg,” Heather says as he steps out.

“You have something for me.” She hands him the letter in a baggy.

“I have had enough involvement with the lab. My mailman and I were the only ones to touch it that I know of.”

“I thought you never wanted to help us again.”

“This case impacts the only person who had faith in me.” Lady Heather breezes off with her auburn long hair flowing behind her. Greg pokes his head into the room to tell them that he’s off.

_“Catherine, I got Sara’s statement along with something else.”_

_“What else did you get?”_

_“Lady Heather came by to check on Sara and Gris, and hand me a letter Grissom thinks is from James.”_

_“You serious.”_ A shocked Catherine says.

“ _It seems to me that James may try recruiting people who Sara did not get along with.”_

_“Someone needs to get in contact with Julia Holden.”_

_“Julia won’t work with someone who refuses to learn sign language. Remember how hostile she was to Sara when she was struggling with ASL.”_

_“The hostile reason is why she needs to be contacted, Greg.”_

_“Julia won’t do anything against Betty, that will hurt someone she cares about.”_

_“Ok, what about the Mason family.”_

_“I don’t think James would know about Craig’s hostility towards Grissom and how he was towards Sara. Most of that is sealed to protect Craig as he was a minor.”_

_“Ok, just get here as soon as you can.”_

………….

“Sara, are you ok that Heather was here?”

“Gil, she is your friend and in a way helped us get together more than once,” They share a loving look, “she did give us a crossword puzzle book.”

“Before anyone else can say anything after you were kidnapped I went to CSI I saw a crossword and I was mad at myself for not waking up before he took you. I walked into the breakroom and when I saw a crossword puzzle I ripped it in half.” Sara’s eyes are wide. “I guess whenever something happens to you I get angry at myself, I blame myself. I know I shouldn't, it's just that I love you so much.” Sara stops him with a long lingering kiss. After they break apart, “You give me life and a reason to live. Whenever we are apart I am a loner and can only work. When we are together I laugh, love, and live.”

“Gil, you have no idea how much I feel the same.” As they were talking, they didn’t see someone enter the room.

“I am glad that the two of you found happiness. Seeing one of my only friends find happiness makes me feel like there is at least something good.” The couple look to see Heather back there. “I still don’t like working in conjunction with LVPD. After everything that has happened to those I love, and how no one ever believes I am innocent when I somehow always surround myself with non-mentally stable people.” Heather watches how the other people in the room don’t move far from each other. “Sara, how are you doing?”

“Ok, considering.”

“I wish I could do something against him,” Both Grissom and Sara share a look and Sara writes ok where their hands are joined together.

“Stop.” Heather looks at him, “we trust our friends and we know they will stop at nothing until they find James.”

“Ok, I have something for the two of you,” Heather takes out a book of crossword puzzles with a wide range of difficulty. “I remember how Grissom said that the two of you did crossword puzzles together and I thought it would help Sara relax so she could get better faster.”

“Thank you, Heather,” Grissom says while Sara remains shocked that someone that she never got along with would do something nice for her.

“Yes, thank you.” Heather leaves the room as Grissom’s head turns towards Sara, “I didn’t expect that.”

“She knew I was in love with someone when we first met, she just didn’t know who. She figured out who it was when you and Catherine worked her case when she was beaten.”

“When you spent the night there?”

“As you know I slept in a spare room. I never loved Heather in the same way I love you.” Both Grissom and Sara settle down onto her hospital bed with the book open to a crossword puzzle.

‘This insect needs to get nectar from two million flowers to make one pound of honey.’ Clue for 4 down and 4 letters read.

“Gilbert you should know that one considering because of you I got stung by one.”

“Yes, Sara, I know it's bees. I didn’t think you would freak out.”

“I was surprised that you asked me to marry you. We hadn’t even talked about marriage in-depth at the time.”

“We were also dating two years the time dear.” Sara shakes her head as she writes the answer down.

“Ok, one across five letters, this city in Europe was originally called Lutetia.”

“Paris.”

“I love you, my precious nerd.”

“I love you too my darling comic book reader.”

“You know I only started reading them after Russel gave me a few copies of his.” At this point, Sara's nurse Kierra enters the room.

“I see that our patient is happy right now.” Kierra comes closer to Sara as Grissom gets up from the bed so that she can check Sara’s vitals.

“Kierra, do you know when I can go home? I kinda don’t like hospitals.”

“Who does dear.” The nurse makes notes on Sara’s chart. “I will have to check with your doctor.” At this point, Sara's doctor with long black hair, Selena enters the room.

“I see that your vitals and tests are improving Miss. Sidle.”

“When can I go home, Selena?”

“Well, as soon we know that you will not get an infection from the glass.” The doctor gives her a small smile.

“I promise, and I am sure if I don’t this guy,” Sara points to Grissom, “will take care of me. He did so when I had more injuries in 2007.”

“I did see that in your records, and your old doctor told me what happened.”

“Yeah, I have some bad luck when I am in Vegas.”

“Darn right,” Grissom plugs in.

“Gil, it came with the job, and you know my family.” Sara looks towards him with a look in her eyes that said ‘just stop.’ He signs sorry.


	17. Safety?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not mine, thanks again to my beta

Meanwhile…

Lindsey bumps into Greg as he runs into the fingerprinting lab. “What do you have there Speedy Gonzales?”

“Another letter from James, this time delivered to Lady Heather. She went to see Sara at the hospital and gave it to me. We can compare the fingerprints we can compare the fingerprints on this to the other one.”

“I know that Lady Heather’s prints are in the system but who else handled it?

“Her mailman, whose prints are in the system due to his job.”

“Greg, we should take it to trace instead. We already know it is from him as it has the lettering and he asked Heather to help him out doing things to Sara and Gris.” 

Greg looks at Lindsey and walks over to trace, “I know you are worried about them Linds, but Sara is like a sister to me.”

“Sara is like an aunt while Grissom is like the uncle I hate to disappoint.”

“You can never disappoint anyone of us, Lindsey.”

“Thank you, Greg.” Lindsey goes back to work.

“I remember feeling like you after I became a CSI, Lindsey.” Greg gets a distant look in his eyes, “I still remember when I was fairly new to being a CSI. I was underneath a car when human soup fell in my mouth. Sara handed me a rag to wipe what I could off, and said ‘Grissom would be proud.’” Lindsey laughs, “I proceeded to say that he would have tasted that on purpose.” 

The duo process the letter looking for trace. When they can’t find any they head to find Nick.

…...Days later…..

“Gilbert, I can get to the wheelchair myself.” Sara sits in the chair, “You know that I am only complying with this stupid policy to make you happy.”

“I know that dear.” Both Kierra and Selena walk into the room.

“Have you two made sure all the paperwork has been signed?” Selena asks.

“Yes, we signed it all and we have a car waiting to drive us home since Gil here,” Sara points to Grissom, has barely left my side since I came here.” Grissom continues to push her out of the hospital to Catherine’s waiting vehicle. The two women on hospital staff head back inside. Sara gets off the wheelchair swatting away Grissom’s hand trying to help her.

“Before we head back do one or both of you need to pop off to the store?” Catherine asks as she gets the car out of park. Sara looks at Grissom who shrugs trying not to let on a surprise for Sara.

“Gil,” Sara says as her voice changes into a different ocative knowing he has something up his sleeve, “I know you better than I know myself. What are you planning?” Catherine turns on the radio trying to get Sara to drop the subject. “Catherine, you know something.”

“WHat?” Catherine hiccoughs, “I have been busy in the lab I have no idea what he has planned.”

“Really Catherine Willows, the former work-wife of the man I love.”

“Oh look,” Grissom interjects, “we are almost there.” 

Sara looks out her window, “No we’re not.” She stares at Grissom, “Gilbert Arthur Grissom tell me what is going on right this moment.”

“Honey, you will love what I have planned,” he leans in to kiss her forehead, “I promise.”

“You will pay if I don’t Gil.” Sara leans back in her seat crossing her arms grumpily for the rest of the ride. Catherine pulls up to the drive of her friend's condo glad that everyone parked a distance away to keep Sara’s surprise on she hopes Lindsey has not told the rest of their team the youngest woman’s secret yet. The three of them get out of the car with Catherine and Grissom getting the few things from the hospital out of the trunk. 

As Sara walks into the darkened space and turns off the alarm she fails to notice an arm flicking on a light and hears people shout, “Surprise,” she looks to see a blue banner that says ‘Welcome Home’. Grissom comes up behind her as Catherine sneaks around them. Grissom’s arms sneak around Sara’s waist.

“Welcome home my dear.”

“Gris, stop hogging her, you get to hug her for the rest of your lives,” Nick says coming, “she’s my family too. I love her as much as my sisters.” Grissom goes to the kitchen letting everyone get some time with Sara. 

Twenty minutes later Grissom walks into the front room hearing Sara’s laugh he doesn’t want to say anything as Lindsey looks up, “Great, food is ready I am ravioness.” Sara looks at Grissom quirking an eyebrow as saying ‘see’.

“I have many vegetarian options for Sara, and for the omnivores a few meat options.” He sets down the platters separating meat from the veggie. He looks around at the people who love Sara.

Lindsey stands up and clears her throat, “I have an announcement to make,” she sees Sara’s big smile and surprised that Sara already knows. “Jared and I are pregnant.” Sara is the first to get up to congratulate Lindsey.

“I am so happy for you. If you ever want the kid to see the ocean when they are old enough Gil and I would be happy to let the two of you get a break.”

“Thank you, Sara.” 

“Now as I love you like a daughter,” Nick says after he gives Lindsey a hug, “I can give him the father talk.”

“Nicky I bet you by over a year,” Greg says.

After Brass hugs Lindsey, “I am going to be like a grandfather to your child.” Morgan, Hodges, Mandy, Wendy all congratulate her.

“Lindsey if you are anything like your mom, you are going to be a fabulous mom.”

“Except I won’t show them dead bodies before they are a teenager.”

“I can’t believe you remember that Lindsey, I felt like a horrible mother for doing that.”

“Mom, I was being a brat during that time. You were doing the best you could.” Lindsey sits down, “Sara, Grissom I have a question to ask the two of you. Zac is ok with what I am going to ask. I was wondering if the two of you could be my kids' godparents.” Sara takes Grissom's hands.

“Are you sure?” Sara is shocked that Lindsey would want her and Grissom as godparents and not one of her friends that are closer to her in age. 

“Of course I am, this child will need to know to never give up on love and all about bugs. What better way than you two.” Lindsey looks at the woman who didn’t get along with her mom for a few years after she joined the team. “Sara, when I was having difficulties as a teen with my mom and grandma, all I had to do was call you even if you were on a date with Grissom; you would stop and talk to me and remind me how much they loved me.” Lindsey and Sara sat down, “you also knew to treat me like whatever my age was.”

“Thank you, Lindsey, for asking us.” Sara hugs Lindsey, “I would love to be the godmother, Gil, what do you feel like being a godfather?” 

“I would love that Lindsey.” A smile that most everyone doesn’t remember seeing since before Warrick was killed graces Grissom’s face. 

“Wow, is that a Grissom smile and not a grimace?” Greg jokes.

“Gregory.” Sara starts to say, “Gil does smile a lot, I know not everyone realizes that.” Grissom leans on the arm of the chair and kisses Sara on her forehead and gives Lindsey a hug.

“The two of you deserve so much more, I heard stories on how you were with kids.” Sara and Grissom start to have a silent conversation as everyone watches on. “Stop it, you two are acting like an old married couple.”

“Lindsey,” Brass speaks up, “they have always been like this.” 

“Hey,” the commented couple say in unison, “we have not always been like that.”

“Yes, you have.” Catherine looks straight at them, “I remember one of the first cases I worked with the two of you; you jelled better than all of us after even working two to three years.”

“We had a connection from the moment we met in San Francisco.”

“We know Sara, we remember how Gris thought that was the start of your relationship.”

“Greg, we had a friendship before I came to Vegas.”

“As of now we are short of help, so I am bringing in Sara Sidle to give us a hand.”

“Sara Sidle.”

“Whose that.”

“She’s a CSI out of San Francisco. She’s a friend of mine. Someone I trust, she’s gonna handle our internal investigation. I wanna keep this in house, and I don’t want IA involved.”

“I thought it was only Sara that basically recorded everything I said, Nick.” Everyone laughs.

“Gris, you should’ve seen your face when you told us you were bringing her in, also it wasn’t just you had put in their words, Catherine and Warrick also was talking.”

“Gil, just admit it, you handpicked me.”

“Of course, I did, I knew from our emails that we are brilliant and loved being a CSI. I was first attracted to your mind.” At that moment there was a banging on the door, all those still in Law Enforcement took out their guns.

“Sara, Gil, Brass make sure you stay behind us,” cautioned Catherine. “Greg, you go check the door, Lindsey you stay as close to them as you can.”

“Mom, I can help out.”

“Lindsey Mae Willows, you will stay put. Right now I am your mother and a future grandmother. I am protecting the two of you.” Lindsey plops down on the couch as Sara puts her arm around the young woman.

“Lindsey, we all love you and have a need to protect you,” Grissom sits on the other side of her, “I can remember when you were kidnapped and how your mom reacted. I knew nothing of what happened to her before, Sara did.”

“I did, but your mom was scared out of her wits and blamed your grandfather for it all.”

“I know she did, she had a rocky relationship with him.”

“That was probably due to me, whenever his name came up in a case I took her off it, because of Sam being related to your mom. The first time I found out that Sam was your grandad was after the lab explosion, and here I was worried about Greg and Sara being hit by it.”

“You grabbed my hand and called me honey when you found me sitting on the curb.” Sara and Grissom get Lindsey to the ground as they hear more shouting as they both try to cover her.

“Get out of here, my sister lives here.” Grissom sees Sara tense before raising her head and moves her legs, he grabs her hand and mouths ‘no’. “I have the right to be here and you cops aren’t.”

“Drop the gun, you already have kidnapping under your belt, if you shoot a police officer that will add years to your sentence.”

“Do you think I care, Catherine Willows? That’s right I know your name, and I know your daughter must be here too. Where is the young woman?” James sneers at everyone, “also where is my sister and Gil Grissom. He is the reason that my sister didn’t want to be around me.” What James does not notice is that a bald man is behind him with a gun aimed at the back of his head.

“This is the sheriff, put down your gun right now James.”

“Really, the man who tried to make my little sister a Lab Director. She is a Sidle, and Sidles shouldn’t trust the cops. We were raised to not tell the cops anything.” Mandy draws her gun getting in front of the doorway leading to Grissom, Sara and Lindsey. “Isn’t Jimmy Boy no longer a cop? Why does he still have a gun?”

“I still have my permit to carry my piece. I love your sister like my own daughter. You should know that I protect her all that I can.” While this is going on Morgan has gone out the back door to call for backup.

“This Charlie 3 Brody, we have suspect in the Sara Sidle and other crimes James Sidle at 1623 West Las Vegas Boulevard. Suspect has a gun and is threatening to shoot CSIs, Catherine Willows, Nick Stokes, Mandy Webster, Wendy Simms, David Hodges, Greg Sanders, former Captain James Brass, and Sheriff Ecklie has him at gunpoint.”

“Charlie 3 Brody, backup is on it way, they are a few minutes out.” Morgan goes through a gate to meet the cops out front.”

“Morgan,” a 6’ tall African American male with a goatee, named Detective Crawford steps out first followed by a female with long flowing blonde hair. “Morgan,” Det. Crawford states, “how is the situation?”

“I haven’t been in since I radio for backup.” Everyone steps closer to the house.

Crawford takes a bullhorn out and speaks into it, “James Sidle, come out with your hands up, we have the house surrounded. You already have hurt your sister and your mom in the past few days. If you stop now and come out your sister may forgive you.”

“Who called the cops?” James yells waving his gun like a mad man. “Was it the man my sister has shacked up with?” He tries to start to move past everyone, but Greg gets in front of him.

“You WILL NOT get any closer to Sara.”

“I have the right to be as close to her as possible, I am her brother.”

“You hurt her, you put her in the hospital.” Greg snears, “you may share her DNA, but a brother- a loving brother wouldn’t purposely hurt his sister. Everyone here loves her like a sister, a daughter, an aunt, or in one person’s case a mate.”

“Stop there, you will not hurt her again,” Nick shoves the gun closer to James. “Leave now, and surrender to the police.”

“I will not surrender to you or to anyone else who won’t let me see my sister.”


End file.
